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THE MYTH OF A GUILTY NATION 



Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
in 2011 witii funding from 
Tine Library of Congress 



Iittp://www.arcliive.org/details/mytliofguiltynati01nocl< 



THE MYTH OF A 
GUILTY NATION 



BY 

ALBERT JAY NOCK 

("historicus") 




NEW YORK B.W. HUEBSCH,Inc. mcmxxii 



COPYRIGHT, 192 2, BY 
THE FREEMAN, Inc. 

COPYRIGHT, 192 2, BY 
B. W. HUEBSCH, Inc. 



PRIKTED IN V. S. A. 



\\\ f 



JUL 17 1922 



A674937 



PREFACE 

This book is made up of a series of articles 
originally published in the Freeman. It was 
compiled to establish one point and only one, 
namely: that the German Government was not 
solely guilty of bringing on the war. I have not 
been at all concerned with measuring the Ger- 
man Government's share of guilt, with trying to 
show that it was either great or small, or that 
it was either less or more than that of any other 
Government or association of Governments-. All 
this is beside the point. I do not by any means 
wish to escape the responsibility of saying that 
I think the German Government's share of guilt 
in the matter is extremely small; so small by 
comparison with that of the major Powers allied 
against Germany, as to be inconsiderable. That 
is my belief, demonstrable as I think by such 
evidence as has now become available to any 
candid person. But this has nothing whatever to 
do with the subject-matter of this volume. If 
the guilt of the German Government could be 

[5] 



proved to be ten times greater than it was repre- 
sented to be by the publicity-bureaux of the 
Allied Powers, the conclusion established in the 
following chapters would still remain. Guilty 
as the German Government may have been; 
multiply by ten any estimate that any person, in- 
terested or disinterested, informed or uninformed, 
may put upon its guilt; the fact remains that it 
was far, very far indeed, from being the only 
guilty party concerned. 

If there were no practical end to be gained by 
establishing this conclusion, if one's purpose were 
only to give the German Government the dubious 
vindication of a tu quoque^ the effort would 
be hardly worth making. But as I say at the out- 
set, there is at stake an extremely important mat- 
ter, one that will unfavourably affect the peace 
of the world for at least a generation — the treaty 
of Versailles. If the German Government may 
not be assumed to be solely responsible for the 
war, this treaty is indefensible; for it is con- 
structed wholly upon that assumption. It be- 
comes, not a treaty, but a verdict pronounced 
after the manner of Brennus, by a superior 
power which, without regard to justice, arrogates 
to itself the functions of prosecutor, jury and 
judge. 

[6] 



It is probably superfluous to point out that 
this treaty, conceived in the pure spirit of the 
victorious Apache, has, in practice, utterly broken 
down. It has not worked and it will not work, 
because it sets at defiance certain economic laws 
which are as inexorable as the law of gravitation. 
The incidence of these laws was well understood 
and clearly foretold, at the time of the peace- 
conference, by an informed minority in Europe, 
notably by Mr. Maynard Keynes in his volume 
entitled "The Economic Consequences of the 
Peace." In this country also, a minority, suffici- 
ently informed to know its right hand from its 
left in economic affairs, stood aghast in contem- 
plation of the ruinous consequences which it per- 
ceived as inevitable under any serious attempt 
to put this vicious instrument into operation. 
But both here and in Europe, this minority was 
very small and uninfluential, and could accom- 
plish nothing against the ignorant and unreason- 
ing bad temper which the politicians kept aflame. 

The treaty had therefore to go to the test of 
experiment; and of the results of this, one need 
surely say nothing, for they are obvious. The 
harder Germany tried to fulfill the conditions of 
the treaty, and the nearer she came to doing so, 
the worse things went in all the countries that 

[7] 



were presumably to benefit by her sacrifice. The 
Central Empires are, as the informed minority 
in all countries has been from the beginning 
anxiously aware, the key-group in the whole of 
European industry and commerce. If they must 
work and trade under unfavourable conditions, 
they also thereby automatically impose corre- 
spondingly unfavourable conditions upon the 
whole of Europe ; and, correspondingly unfavour- 
able conditions are thereby in turn automatically 
set up wherever the trade of Europe reaches — for 
example, in the United States. There is now 
no possible doubt about this, for one has but to 
glance at the enormous dislocations of interna- 
tional commerce, and the universal and profound 
stagnation of industry, in order to prove it to 
one's complete satisfaction, Germany wisely and 
far-sightedly made a sincere and vigourous effort 
to comply with the conditions of the treaty; and 
by so doing she has carried the rest of the world 
to the verge of economic collapse. The damage 
wrought by the war was in general of a spectacu- 
lar and impressive type, and was indeed very 
great — no one would minimize it — ^but the dam- 
age, present and prospective, wrought by the 
treaty of peace is much greater and more far- 
reaching. 

[8] 



The political inheritors of those who made the 
peace are now extremely uneasy about it. Their 
predecessors (including Mr. Lloyd George, who 
still remains in office) had flogged up popular 
hatred against the Central Empires at such a 
rate that when they took office they still had, or 
thought they had, to court and indulge this 
hatred. Thus we found Mr. Secretary Hughes, 
for example, in his first communication to the 
German Government, laying it down that the 
basis of the Versailles treaty was sound — that 
Germany was solely responsible for the war. He 
spoke of it quite in the vein of Mr. Lloyd George, 
as a chose jugee. After having promulgated the 
treaty with such immense ceremony, and raised 
such preposterous and extravagant popular ex- 
pectations on the strength of it, the architects of 
the treaty bequeathed an exceedingly difficult 
task to their successors; the task of letting the 
public down, diverting their attention with this 
or that gesture, taking their mind off their dis- 
appointments and scaling down their expecta- 
tions, so that in time it might be safe to let the 
Versailles treaty begin to sink out of sight. 

The task is being undertaken ; the curious piece 
of mountebankery recently staged in Washington, 
for example, was an ambitious effort to keep the 

[9] 



peoples, particularly those of Europe, hopeful, 
confiding and diverted ; and if economic conditions 
permit, if times do not become too hard, it may 
succeed. The politicians can not say outright 
that the theory of the Versailles treaty is dis- 
honest and outrageous, and that the only chance 
of peace and well-being is by tearing up the 
treaty and starting anew on another basis en- 
tirely. They can not say this on account of the 
exigencies of their detestable trade. The best 
that they can do is what they are doing. They 
must wait until the state of public feeling permits 
them to ease down from their uncompromising 
stand upon the treaty. Gradually, they expect, 
the public will accustom itself to the idea of re- 
laxations and accommodations, as it sees, from 
day to day, the patent impracticability of any 
other course; feelings will weaken, asperities 
soften, hatreds die out, contacts' and approaches 
of one kind or another will take place; and finally, 
these public men or their political inheritors will 
think themselves able to effect in an unobtrusive 
way, such substantial modifications of the treaty 
of Versailles as will amount to its annulment. 

The process is worth accelerating by every 
means possible; and what I have here done is 
meant to assist it. There are many persons in the 

[lo] 



country who are not politicians, and who are cap- 
able and desirous of approaching a matter of 
this kind with intellectual honesty. Quite pos- 
sibly they are not aware, many of them, that the 
Versailles treaty postulates the sole responsibil- 
ity of the German Government for bringing on 
the war; undoubtedly they are not acquainted 
with such evidence as I have here compiled to 
show that this assumption is unjust and erron- 
eous. Having read this evidence, they will be 
in a position to review the terms of the Versailles 
treaty and reassess the justice of those terms. 
They will also be able to understand the un- 
willingness, the inability, of the German people 
to acquiesce in those terms; and they can com- 
prehend the slowness and difficulty wherewith 
peace and good feeling are being re-established 
in Europe, and the extreme precariousness and 
uncertainty of Europe's situation — and our own, 
in consequence — throughout a future that seems 
longer than one cares to contemplate. 

The reader will perceive at once that this book 
is a mere compilation and transcription of fact, 
containing not a shred of opinion or of any orig- 
inal matter. On this account it was published 
anonymously in its serial form, because it seemed 
to me that such work should be judged strictly 

[11] 



as it stands, without regard to the authority, or 
lack of authority, which the compiler might hap- 
pen to possess. Almost all of it is lifted straight 
from the works of my friends Mr. Francis Neil- 
son and Mr. E. D. Morel. I earnestly hope — 
indeed, it is my chief motive in publishing this 
book — that it may serve as an introduction to 
these words. I can not place too high an estimate 
upon their importance to a student of British and 
Continental diplomacy. They are, as far as I 
know, alone in their field; nothing else can take 
their place. They are so thorough, so exhaus- 
tive and so authoritative that I wonder at their 
being so little known in the United States. Mr. 
Morel' si works,^ "Ten Years of Secret Diplo- 
macy," "Truth and the War," and "Diplomacy 
Revealed," are simply indispensable. Mr. Neil- 
son's book "How D/iplomats Make War," ^ is not 
an easy book to read; no more are Mr. Morel's; 
but without having read it no serious student can 
possibly do justice to the subject. 

Albert Jay Nock 

1 "Ten Years of Secret Diplomacy." $1.25. "Truth and the 
War." $1.25. E. D. Morel. New York: B. W. Huebsch. 

"Diplomacy Revealed." E. D. Morel. London, 8 & 9 John- 
son's Court: National Labour Press. 

2 "How Diplomats Make War." Francis Neilson. New 
York: B. W. Huebsch. $2.00 

[12] 



THE MYTH OF 
A GUILTY NATION 



The present course of events in Europe is im- 
pressing on us once more the truth that military 
victory, if it is to stand, must also be demon- 
strably a victory for justice. In the long run, 
victory must appeal to the sense of justice in the 
conquered no less than in the conquerors, if it 
is to be effective. There is no way of getting 
around this. Mr. Gilbert K. Chesterton is night 
when he says that if the South had not finally 
accepted the outcome of the Civil War as being 
on the whole just, Lincoln would have been wrong 
in trying to preserve the Union; which is only 
another way of expressing Lincoln's own homely 
saying that nothing is ever really settled until it 
is settled right. The present condition of Europe 
is largely due to the fact that the official peace- 
makers have not taken into their reckoning the 

[13] 



German people's sense of justice. Their mistake 
— it was also Mr. Wilson's great mistake — 
was in their disregard of what Bismarck called 
the imponderabilia. The terms of the peace 
treaty plainly reflect this mistake. That is 
largely the reason why the treaty is to-day in- 
operative and worthless. That is largely why 
the Governments of Europe are confronted with 
the inescapable alternative: they can either tear 
up the treaty and replace it by an understanding 
based on justice, or they can stick to the treaty 
and by so doing protract indefinitely the dismal 
succession of wars, revolutions, bankruptcies and 
commercial dislocations that the treaty inaugu- 
rated. 

That is the situation; and it is a situation in 
which the people of the United States have an 
interest to preserve — the primary interest of a 
creditor, and also the interest of a trader who 
needs a large and stable market. It is idle to 
suppose that American business can prosper so 
long as Europe remains in a condition of in- 
stability and insolvency. Our business is ad- 
justed to the scale of a solvent Europe, and it can 
not be readjusted without irreparable damage. 
Until certain matters connected with the war are 
resolutely put under review, Europe can not be 

[14] 



reconstructed, and the United States can not be 
prosperous. The only thing that can better our 
own situation is the resumption of normal eco- 
nomic life in Europe; and this can be done only 
through a thorough reconsideration of the in- 
justices that have been put upon the German 
people by the conditions of the armistice and the 
peace treaty. 

Of these injustices, the greatest, because it is 
the foundation for all the rest, is the imputation 
of Germany's sale responsibility for the war. 
The German people will never endure that im- 
putation; they should never be expected to en- 
dure it. Nothing can really be settled until the 
question of responsibility is openly and can- 
didly re-examined, and an understanding estab- 
lished that is based on facts instead of on official 
misrepresentation. This question is by no means 
one of abstract justice alone, or of chivalry and 
fair play towards a defeated enemy. It is a 
question of self-interest, immediate and urgent. 
However it may be regarded by the American 
sense of justice and fair play, it remains, to the 
eye of American industry and commerce, a 
straight question of dollars and cents. The 
prosperity of the United States, as we are be- 
ginning to see, hangs upon the economic re-es- 

[15] 



tablishment of Europe. Europe can not possibly 
be settled upon the present terms of peace; and 
these terms can not be changed without first vacat- 
ing the theory of Germany's sole responsibility, 
because it is upon this theory that the treaty of 
Versailles was built. This theory, therefore, 
must be re-examined in the light of evidence 
that the Allied and Associated Governments have 
done their best either to ignore or to suppress. 
Hence, for the American people, the way to 
prosperity lies through a searching and honest 
examination of this theory that has been so deeply 
implanted in their mind — the theory of a brigand- 
nation, plotting in solitude to achieve the mastery 
of the world by fire and sword. 

Americans, however, come reluctantly to the 
task of this examination, for two reasons. First, 
we are all tired of the war, we hate to think of 
it or of anything connected with it, and as far as 
possible, we keep it out of our minds. Second, 
nearly every reputation of any consequence in 
this country, political, clerical, academic and 
journalistic, is already committed, head over ears, 
to the validity of this theory. How many of our 
politicians are there whose reputations are not 
bound up inextricably with this legend of a Ger- 
man plot"? How many of our newspaper-editors 

[16] 



managed to preserve detachment enough under 
the pressure of war-propaganda to be able to come 
forward to-day and say that the question of re- 
sponsibility for the war should be re-opened? 
How can the pro-war liberals and ex-pacifists ask 
for such an inquest when they were all swept off 
their feet by the specious plea that this war was 
a different war from all other wars in the history 
of mankind"? What can our ministers of religion 
say after the unreserved endorsement that they 
put upon the sanctity of the Allied cause? What 
can our educators say, after having served so 
zealously the ends of the official propagandists? 
From our journalists and men of letters what 
can we expect — after all his rodomontade about 
Potsdam and the Potsdam gang, how could we 
expect Dr. Henry Van Dyke, for instance, to face 
the fact that the portentous Potsdam meeting of 
the Crown Council on 5 July, 1914, never took 
place at all? There is no use in trying to put 
a breaking-strain upon human nature, or, on the 
other hand, in assuming a pharisaic attitude to- 
wards its simplest and commonest frailties. It 
is best, under the circumstances, merely to under- 
stand that on this question every institutional 
voice in the United States is tongue-tied. Press, 
pulpit, schools and universities, charities and 

[17] 



foundations, forums, all are silent; and to ex- 
pect them to break their silence is to expect more 
than should be expected from the pride of opinion 
in average human nature. 



[18] 



II 



In examining the evidence let us first take Mr. 
Lloyd George's own statement of the theory. Ex- 
cept in one particular, it presents the case against 
Germany quite as it has been rehearsed by nearly 
every institutional voice in the United States. 
On 4 August, 1917 — after America's entry into 
the war — the British Premier said: 

What are we fighting for? To defeat the most 
dangerous conspiracy ever plotted against the liberty of 
nations ; carefully, skilfully, insidiously, clandestinely 
planned in every detail, with ruthless, cynical deter- 
mination. 

Except for one point, this statement sums up 
what we have all heard to be the essential doc- 
trine of the war. The one missing point in Mr. 
Lloyd George's indictment is that the great Ger- 
man conspiracy was launched upon an unprepared 
Europe, In Europe itself, the official propagan- 
dists did not make much of this particular point, 
for far too many people knew better; but in the 

[19] 



United States it was promulgated widely. In- 
deed, this romance of Allied unpreparedness was 
an essential part of the whole story of German 
responsibility. Germany, so the official story ran, 
not only plotted in secret, but she sprung her plot 
upon a Europe that was wholly unprepared and 
unsuspecting. Her action was like that of a 
highwayman leaping from ambush upon a de- 
fencleless wayfarer. Belgium was unprepared, 
France unprepared, Russia unprepared, Eng- 
land unprepared; and in face of an unpro- 
voked attack, these nations hurriedly drew to- 
gether in an extemporized union, and held the 
"mad dog" at bay with an extemporized de- 
fence until they could devise a plan of common 
action and a pooling of military and naval re- 
sources. 

Such, then, is a fair statement of the doctrine 
of the war as America was taught it. Next, in 
order to show how fundamental this doctrine is to 
the terms of the peace treaty, let us consider an- 
other statement of Mr. Lloyd George made 3 
March, 1921: 

For the allies, German responsibility for the war is 
fundamental. It is the basis upon which the structure 
of the treaty of Versailles has been erected, and if that 
acknowledgment is repudiated or abandoned, the treaty 

[20] 



is destroyed. . . . We wish, therefore, once and for all, 
to make it quite clear that German responsibility for the 
war must be treated by the Allies as a chose jugee. 

Thus the British Premier explicitly declares 
that the treaty of Versailles is based upon the 
theory of Germany's sole responsibility. 

Now, as against this theory, the main facts 
may be summarized as follows: (i) The British 
and French General Staffs had been in active 
collaboration for war with Germany ever since 
January 1906. (2) The British and French 
Admiralty had been in similar collaboration. 
(3) The late Lord Fisher [First Sea Lord of the 
British Admiralty], twice in the course of these 
preparations, proposed an attack upon the Ger- 
man fleet and a landing upon the coast of 
Fomerania, without a declaration of war. (4) 
Russia had been preparing for war ever since 
1909, and the Russian and French General Staffs 
had come to a formal understanding that Russian 
mobilization should be held equivalent to a dec- 
laration of war. (5) Russian mobiljization was 
begun in the spring of 1914, under the guise 
of "tests," and these tests were carried on con- 
tinuously to the outbreak of the war. (6) In 
April, 1914, four months before the war, the 

[21] 



Russian and French naval authorities initiated 
joint plans for maritime operations against Ger- 
many. (7) Up to the outbreak of the war, Ger- 
many was selling grain in considerable quantities 
to both France and Russia. (8) It can not be 
shown that the German Government ever in a 
single instance, throughout all its dealings with 
foreign Governments, demanded or intimated for 
Germany anything more than a position of eco- 
nomic equality with other nations. 

These facts, among others to which reference 
will hereafter be made, have come to light only 
since the outbreak of the war. They effectively 
dispose of the theory of an unprepared and un- 
suspecting Europe; and a historical survey of 
them excludes absolutely, and stamps as utterly 
untenable and preposterous, the theory of a de- 
liberate German plot against the peace of the 
world. 



[22] 



Ill 



Let us now consider the idea so generally held 
in America, though not in Europe, that in 1914, 
England and the Continental nations were not 
expecting war and not prepared for war. The 
fact is that Europe was as thoroughly organized 
for war as it could possibly be. The point to 
which that organization was carried by England, 
France and Russia, as compared with Germany 
and Austria, may to some extent be indicated 
by statistics. In 1913, Russia carried a military 
establishment (on a peace footing) of 1,284,000 
men; France, by an addition of 183,000 men, 
proposed to raise her peace-establishment to a 
total of 741,572. Germany, by an addition of 
174,373 men, proposed to raise her total to 
821,964; and Austria, by additions of 58,505 al- 
ready made, brought her total up to 473,643. 
These are the figures of the British War Office, 
as furnished to the House of Commons in 1913. 
Here is a set of figures that is even more inter- 
esting and significant. From 1909 to 1914, the 

[23] 



amount spent on new naval construction by Eng- 
land, France and Russia, as compared with Ger- 
man)^, was as follows: 



1909 
1910 
1911 
1912 

1913 
1914 



England 

£11,076,551 
£14,755,289 
£15,148,171 
£16,132,558 
£16,883,875 



France 

■£ 4,517,766 

£ 4,977,682 

£ 5,876,659 

£ 7,114,876 

£ 8,893,064 



Russia 

£ 1,758,487 
£ 1,424,013 
£ 3,216,396 
£ 6,897,58a 
£12,082,516 



Germany 

£10,177,063 
£11,392,856 
£11,710,859 
£11,491,187 
£11,010,883 



£18,676,080 £11,772,862 £13,098,613 £10,316,264 



These figures can not be too carefully studied 
by those who have been led to think that Ger- 
many pounced upon a defenceless and unsuspect- 
ing Europe like a cat upon a mouse. If it be 
thought worth while to consider also the period 
of a few years preceding 1909, one finds that 
England's superiority in battleships alone was 
112 per cent in 1901, and her superiority rose to 
nearly 200 per cent in 1904; in which year Eng- 
land spent £42,431,000 on her navy, and Ger- 
many £11,659,000. Taking the comparative 
statistics of naval expenditure from 1900, in 
which year England spent £32,055,000 on her 
navy, and Germany spent £7,472,000, down tc 
1914 it is absolutely impossible to make the 
figures show that Germany enforced upon the 
other nations of Europe an unwilling competition 
in naval armament. 

[24] 



But the German army! According to all ac- 
counts of German militarism which were suffered 
to reach these shores, it is here that we shall find 
evidence of what Mr. Lloyd George, on 4 Au- 
gust, 1917, called "the most dangerous conspiracy 
ever plotted against the liberty of nations; care- 
fully, skilfully, insidiously, clandestinely planned 
in every detail, with ruthless, cynical determina- 
tion." Well, if one chooses to hold the current 
view of German militarism, it must be admitted 
that Germany had at her disposal some miracu- 
lous means of getting something for nothing, get- 
ting a great deal for nothing, in fact, for on any 
other supposition, the figures are far from sup- 
porting that view. In 1914 (pre-war figures), 
Germany and Austria together carried an army- 
expenditure of £92 million; England, France and 
Russia together carried one of £142 million. 
England "had no army," it was said; all her 
military strength lay in her navy. If that were 
true, then it must be said that she had as miracu- 
lous a faculty as Germany's; only, whereas Ger- 
many's was a faculty for getting more than her 
money's worth, England's was for getting 
less than her money's worth. England's army- 
expenditure for 1914 (pre-war figures) was £28 
million; £4 million more than Austria's. Nor 

[25] 



was this a sudden emergency-outlay. Going 
back as far as 1905, we find that she laid out in 
that year the same amount, £28 million. In that 
year, Germany and Austria together spent £48 
million on their armies; England, France and 
Russia together spent £94 million on theirs. If 
between 1905 and 1913, England, France and 
Russia spent any such sums upon their armies 
as their statistics show, and nothing came of it 
but an unprepared and unsuspecting Europe in 
1914, it seems clear that the taxpayers of those 
countries were swindled on an inconceivably large 
scale. 



[26] 



IV 



At this point, some questions may be raised. 
Why, in the decade preceding 1914, did England, 
France and Russia arm themselves at the rate 
indicated by the foregoing figures'? Why did 
they accelerate their naval development progres- 
sively from about £17 million in 1909 to about 
£43 million in 1914? Why did Russia alone 
propose to raise her military peace-establishment 
to an army of 1,700,000, more than double the 
size of Germany's army^ Against whom were 
these preparations directed, and understood to be 
directed'? Certainly not against one another. 
France and Russia had been bound by a military 
convention ever since 17 August, 1892; England 
and France had been bound since January, 1906, 
by a similar pact; and this was subsequently ex- 
tended to include Belgium. These agreements 
will be considered in detail hereafter ; they are now 
mentioned merely to show that the military activ- 
ity in these countries was not independent in pur- 
pose. France, England, Russia and Belgium 

[27] 



were not uneasy about one another and not arm- 
ing against one another ; nor is there any evidence 
that anyone thought that they were. It was 
against the Central Empires only that these prep- 
arations were addressed. Nor can one who 
scans the table of relative expenditure easily be- 
lieve that the English-French-Russian combina- 
tion was effected for purely defensive purposes; 
and taking the diplomatic history of the period 
in conjunction with the testimony of the budgets, 
such belief becomes impossible. 



[28] 



The British Government is the one which was 
most often represented to us as taken utterly by 
surprise by the German onslaught on Belgium. 
Let us see. The Austrian Archduke was assassi- 
nated 28 June, 1914, by three men who, accord- 
ing to wide report in Europe and absolute cer- 
tainty in America, were secret agents of the Ger- 
man Government, acting under German official 
instruction. The findings of the court of inquiry 
showed that they were Serbs, members of a pan- 
Slav organization; that the assassination was 
plotted in Belgrade, and the weapons with which 
it was committed were obtained there. ^ Serbia 
denied all connexion with the assassins (the 
policy of Serbia being then controlled by the 
Russian Foreign Office), and then the Russian 

1 Six months after the armistice, the bodies of the three as- 
sassins were dug up, according to a Central News dispatch 
from Prague, "with great solemnity, in the presence of thou- 
sands of the inhabitants. The remains of these Serbian officers 
are to be sent to their native country." This is a naive state- 
ment. It remains to be explained why these "German agents" 
should be honoured in this distinguished way by the Serbs ! 

[29] 



Government stepped forward to prevent the hu- 
miliation of Serbia by Austria. It is clear from 
the published diplomatic documents that the 
British Foreign Office knew everything that took 
place between the assassination and the burial of 
the Archduke; all the facts, that is, connected 
with the murder. The first dispatch in the 
British White Paper is dated 20 July, and it is 
addressed to the British Ambassador at Berlin. 
One wonders why not to the Ambassador at 
Vienna; also one wonders why the diplomats ap- 
parently found nothing to write about for nearly 
three weeks between the Archduke's funeral and 
20 July. It is a strange silence. Sir Edward 
Grey, however, made a statement in the House of 
Commons, 27 July, in which he gave the impres- 
sion that he got his first information about the 
course of the quarrel between Austria and Serbia 
no earlier than 24 July, three days before. The 
Ambassador at Vienna, Sir M. de Bunsen, had, 
notwithstanding, telegraphed him that the Aus- 
trian Premier had given him no hint of "the 
impending storm" and that it was from a private 
source "that I received, 15 July, the forecast of 
what was about to happen, concerning which I 
telegraphed to you the following day." Sir 
Maurice de Bunsen's telegram on this important 

[30] 



subject thus evidently was suppressed; and the 
only obvious reason for the suppression is that 
it carried evidence that Sir E. Grey was 
thoroughly well posted by 16 July on what was 
taking place in Vienna. Sir M. de Bunsen's al- 
lusion to this telegram confirms this assumption; 
in fact, it can be interpreted in no other way. 

On 28 July, the House of Commons was in- 
formed that Austria had declared war on Serbia. 
Two days later, 30 July, Sir E. Grey added the 
item of information that Russia had ordered a 
partial mobilization "which has not hitherto led 
to any corresponding steps by other Powers, so 
far as our information goes." Sir E. Grey did 
not add, however, that he knew quite well what 
"corresponding steps" other Powers were likely 
to take. He knew the terms of the Russian- 
French military convention, under which a mobili- 
zation by Russia was to be held equivalent to a 
declaration of war; he also knew the terms of the 
English-French agreement which he himself had 
authorized — although up to the eve of the war 
he denied, in reply to questions in the House of 
Commons, that any such agreement existed, and 
acknowledged it only on 3 August, 1914.^ He 

1 See footnote to chapter XVIII 

[31] 



had promised Sazonov, the Russian Foreign Min- 
ister, in 1912, that in the event of Germany's 
coming to Austria's aid, Russia could rely on 
Great Britain to "stake everything in order to 
inflict the most serious blow to German power." 
To say that Sir E. Grey, and a fortiori Mr. As- 
quith, the Prime Minister; Lord Haldane, the 
Minister for War, whose own book has been a 
most tremendous let-down to the fictions of the 
propagandists; Mr. Winston Churchill, head of 
the Admiralty, who at Dundee, 5 June, 1915, 
declared that he had been sent to the Admiralty 
in 1911 with the express duty laid upon him by 
the Prime Minister to put the fleet in a state of 
instant and constant readiness for war ; to say that 
these men were taken by surprise and unprepared, 
is mere levity, 

Austria was supposed to be, and still is by 
some believed to have been, Germany's vassal 
State, and by menacing Serbia to have been doing 
Germany's dirty work. No evidence of this has 
been adduced; and the trouble with this idea of 
Austria's status is that it breaks down before the 
report of Sir M. de Bunsen, 1 September, 1914, 
that Austria finally yielded and agreed to accept 
all the proposals of the Powers for mediation be- 

[32] 



tween herself and Serbia. She made every con- 
cession. Russian mobihzation, however, had be- 
gun on 25 July and become general four days 
later; and it was not stopped. Germany then 
gave notice that she would mobilize her army if 
Russian mobilization was not stopped in twelve 
hours; and also, knowing the terms of the Russian- 
French convention of 1892, she served notice 
on France, giving her eighteen hours to declare 
her position. Russia made no reply; France an- 
swered that she would do what she thought best in 
her own interest; and almost at the moment, on 
1 August, when Germany ordered a general 
mobilization, Russian troops were over her border, 
the British fleet had been mobilized for a week 
in the North Sea, and British merchant ships were 
lying at Kronstadt, empty, to convey Russian 
troops from that port to the Pomeranian coast, 
in pursuance of the plan indicated by Lord 
Fisher in his autobiography, recently published. 
These matters are well summed up by Lord 
Loreburn, as follows: 

Serbia gave offence to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 
cause of just offence, as our Ambassador frankly admits 
in his published dispatches. We [England] had no 

[33] 



concern in that quarrel, as Sir Edward Grey says in 
terms. But Russia, the protectress of Serbia, came 
forward to prevent her being utterly humiliated by Aus- 
tria. We were not concerned in that quarrel either, as 
Sir Edward also says. And then Russia called upon 
France under their treaty to help in the fight. France 
was not concerned in that quarrel any more than our- 
selves, as Sir Edward informs us. But France was 
bound by a Russian treaty, of which he did not know 
the terms, and then France called on us for help. We 
were tied by the relations which our Foreign Office had 
created, without apparently realizing that they had cre- 
ated them. 

In saying that Sir E. Grey did not know the 
terms of the Franco-Russian agreement, Lord 
Loreburn is generous, probably more generous 
than he should be; but that is no matter. The 
thing to be remarked is that Lord Loreburn' s sum- 
ming-up comes to something wholly different 
from Mr. Lloyd George's "most dangerous con- 
spiracy ever plotted against the liberty of na- 
tions." It comes to something wholly different 
from the notion implanted in Americans, of Ger- 
many pouncing upon a peaceful, unprepared and 
unsuspecting Europe. The German nation, we 
may be sure, is keenly aware of this difference; 
and therefore, any peace which, like the peace of 
Versailles, is bottomed on the chose jugee of lay- 

[34] 



ing the sole responsibility for the war at the door 
of the German nation, or even at the door of the 
German Government, is simply impracticable and 
impossible. 



[35] 



VI 



If the theory upon which the treaty of Versailles 
is based, the theory of a single guilty nation, 
were true, there would be no trouble about 
saying what the war was fought for. The Allied 
belligerents would have a simple, straight story 
to tell; they could describe their aims and inten- 
tions clearly in a few words that any one could 
understand, and their story would be reasonably 
consistent and not vary greatly from year to year. 
It would be practically the same story in 1918 
as in 1915 or at any time between. In America, 
indeed, the story did not greatly vary up to the 
spring of 1917, for the reason that this country 
was pretty much in the dark about European in- 
ternational relations. Once our indignation and 
sympathies were aroused, it was for the propa- 
gandists mostly a matter of keeping them as hot 
as possible. Few had the information necessary 
to discount the plain, easy, understandable story 
of a robber nation leaping upon an unprepared 
and defenceless Europe for no cause whatever 

[36] 



except the lofty ambition, as Mr. Joseph Choate 
said, "to establish a world-empire upon the ruins 
of the British Empire." Those who had this in- 
formation could not make themselves heard; and 
thus it was that the propagandists had no need to 
vary the one story that was most useful to their 
purpose of keeping us in a state of unreasoning 
indignation, and accordingly they did not vary it. 
In Europe and in England, however, the case 
was different. International relations were bet- 
ter understood by those who were closer to them 
than we were; more questions were raised and 
more demands made. Hence the Allied poli- 
ticians and propagandists were kept busy upon the 
defensive. When from time to time the voice 
of popular discontent or of some influential body 
of opinion insisted on a statement of the causes 
of the war or of the war-aims of the Allies, they 
were confronted with the politician's traditional 
difficulty. They had to say something plausible 
and satisfactory, which yet must be something 
that effectively hid the truth of the situation. 
As the war hung on, their difficulty became des- 
perate and they threw consistency to the winds, 
telling any sort of story that would enable them 
for the moment to "get by." The publication 
of the secret treaties which had been seined out 

[37] 



of the quagmire of the old Russian Foreign 
Office by the revolutionists made no end of 
trouble for them. . It is amusing now to remem- 
ber how promptly these treaties were branded 
by the British Foreign Office as forgeries; espe- 
cially when it turned out that the actual terms 
of the armistice — not the nominal terms, which 
were those of Mr. Wilson's Fourteen Points, but 
the actual terms — were the terms of the secret 
treaties I The publication of the secret treaties 
in this country did not contribute much towards 
a disillusionment of the public; the press as a 
rule ignored or lied about them, they were not 
widely read, and few who did read them had 
enough understanding of European affairs to in- 
terpret them. But abroad they put a good deal 
of fat into the fire; and this was a specimen of 
the kind of thing that the Allied politicians had 
to contend with in their efforts to keep their 
peoples in line. 

The consequence was that the official and semi- 
official statements of the causes of the war and 
of the war-aims of the Allies are a most curious 
hotchpotch. In fact, if any one takes stock in 
the theory of the one guilty nation and is there- 
fore convinced that the treaty of Versailles is 
just and proper and likely to enforce an endur- 

[38] 



ing peace, one could suggest nothing better than 
that he should go through the literature of the 
war, pick out these statements, put them in par- 
allel columns, and see how they look. If the 
war originated in the unwarranted conspiracy of 
a robber nation, if the aims of the Allies were to 
defeat that conspiracy and render it impotent 
and to chastise and tie the hands of the robber 
nation — and that is the theory of the treaty of 
Versailles — can anyone in his right mind sup- 
pose that the Allied politicians and propagandists 
would ever give out, or need to give out, these 
ludicrously contradictory and inconsistent expla- 
nations and statements ? When one has a simple, 
straight story to tell, and a most effective story, 
why complicate it and undermine it and throw 
all sorts of doubts upon it, by venturing upon 
all sorts of public utterances that will not square 
with it in any conceivable way? Politicians, of 
all men, never lie for the fun of it; their avail- 
able margin of truth is always so narrow that 
they keep within it when they can. Mr. Lloyd 
George, for example, is one of the cleverest of 
politicians. We have already considered his two 
statements; first, that of 4 August, 1917: 

What are we fighting for? To defeat the most 
dangerous conspiracy ever plotted against the liberty of 

[39] 



nations; carefully, skilfully, insidiously, clandestinely 
planned in every detail with ruthless, cynical deter- 
mination. 

— and then that of 3 March, 1921 : 

For the Allies, German responsibility for the war is 
fundamental. It is the basis upon which the structure 
of the treaty of Versailles has been erected, and if that 
acknowledgment is repudiated or abandoned, the treaty 
is destroyed. . . . German responsibility for the war 
must be treated by the Allies as a chose jugee. 

A little over two months before Mr. George 
made this latter utterance, on 23 December, 1920, 
he said this: 

The more one reads memoirs and books written in the 
various countries of what happened before the first of 
August, 1914, the more one realizes that no one at the 
head of affairs quite meant war at that stage. It was 
something into which they glided, or rather staggered and 
stumbled, perhaps through folly ; and a discussion, I 
have no doubt, would have averted it. 

Well, it would strike an unprejudiced person 
that if this were true, there is a great deal of 
doubt put upon Mr. Lloyd George's former state- 
ments by Mr. Lloyd George himself. Persons 
who plot carefully, skilfully, insidiously and clan- 
destinely, do not glide; they do not stagger or 
stumble, especially through folly. They keep go- 

[40] 



ing, as we in America were assured that the Ger- 
man Government did keep going, right up to The 
Day of their own choosing. Moreover, they are 
not likely to be headed off by discussion; high- 
waymen are notoriously curt in their speech and 
if one attempts discussion with them they become 
irritable and peremptory. This is the invariable 
habit of highwaymen. Besides, if discussion 
would have averted war in 1914, why was it not 
forthcoming^ Certainly not through any fault 
of the Austrian Government, which made every 
concession, as the British Ambassador's report 
shows, notwithstanding its grievance against 
Serbia was a just one. Certainly not through any 
fault of the German Government, which never 
refused discussion and held its hand with all the 
restraint possible under the circumstances just de- 
scribed. Well, then, how is it so clear that Ger- 
man responsibility for the war should be treated 
as a chose ]ugee? 



[41 1 



VII 



People who have a clear and simple case do not 
talk in this fashion. Picking now at random 
among the utterances of politicians and propagan- 
dists, we find an assorted job-lot of aims assigned 
and causes alleged, and in all of them there is 
that curious, incomprehensible and callous dis- 
regard of the power of conviction that a straight 
story always exercises, if you have one to tell. 
In November, 1917, when the Foreign OfBce was 
being pestered by demands for a statement of the 
Allied war-aims. Lord Robert Cecil said in the 
House of Commons, that the restitution of Alsace 
and Lorraine to France was a "well-understood 
war-aim from the moment we entered the war." 
As things have turned out, it is an odd coincidence 
how so many of these places that have iron or 
coal or oil in them seem to represent a well-un- 
derstood war-aim. Less than a month before, in 
October, 1917, General Smuts said that to his 
mind the one great dominating war-aim was "the 
end of militarism, the end of standing armies." 
Well, the Allies won the war, but judging by 

[42] 



results, this dominating war-aim seems rather to 
have been lost sight of. Mr. Lloyd George again 
on another occasion, said in the House of Com- 
mons that "self-determination was one of the 
principles for which we entered the war ... a 
principle from which we have never departed 
since the beginning of the war." This, too, 
seems an aim that for some reason the victorious 
nations have not quite realized; indeed in some 
cases, as in Ireland, for example, there has been 
no great alacrity shown about trying to realize it. 
Viscount Bryce said that the war sprang from the 
strife of races and religions in the Balkan coun- 
tries, and from the violence done to the senti- 
ment of nationality in Alsace-Lorraine which 
made France the ally of Russia. But the fact 
is that France became the ally of Russia on 
the basis of hard cash, and since the Russian 
Revolution, she has been a bit out of luck by 
way of getting her money back. Mr. Asquith in 
the House of Commons, 3 August, 1914 said: 

If I am asked what we are fighting for, I reply in 
two sentences. In the first place, to fulfil a solemn 
international obligation. . . . Secondly we are fight- 
ing ... to vindicate the principle that small nation- 
alities are not to be crushed in defiance of international 
good faith. 

[43] 



Just so: and in the House of Commons, 20 
December, 1917, he said: 

The League of Nations . . . was the avowed purpose, 
the very purpose . . . for which we entered the war and 
for which we are continuing the war. 

You pays your money, you see, and takes your 
choice. The point to be made, however, is that 
one who has a strong case, a real case, never 
trifles with it in this way. Would the reader 
doit^ 



[44] 



VIII 



Mr. AsguiTH's citation of a "solemn interna- 
tional obligation" refers to the so-called Belgian 
treaties. It will be remembered that the case of 
Belgium was the great winning card played by 
the Allied Governments for the stakes of Amer- 
ican sympathies ; and therefore we may here prop- 
erly make a survey, somewhat in detail, of the 
status of Belgium at the outset of the war. 

Belgium had learned forty years ago how she 
stood under the treaties of 1831 and 1839. 
When in the late 'eighties there was likelihood of 
a Franco-German war, the question of England's 
participation under these treaties was thoroughly 
discussed, and it was shown conclusively that 
England was not obligated. Perhaps the best 
summary of the case was that given by Mr. W. 
T. Stead in the Pall Mall Gazette in the issues 
of 4 and 5 February, 1887. After an examina- 
tion of the treaties of 1831, 1839 and 1870 — an 
examination unfortunately too long to be quoted 
here — Mr. Stead briefly sums up the result of his 
investigation in the following statement: 

[45] 



There is therefore no English guarantee to Belgium. It 
is possible perhaps, to 'construct' such a guarantee; but 
the case may be summed up as follows : ( i ) England is 
under no guarantee whatever except such as is common 
to Austria, France, Russia and Germany; (2) that 
guarantee is not specifically of the neutrality of Belgium 
at all ; and (3) is given, not to Belgium but to the 
Netherlands. 

This was the official view of the British Gov- 
ernment at the time, and it is reflected in the cele- 
brated letter signed "Diplomaticus" in the 
Standard of 4 February, to which Mr. Stead re- 
fers; which, indeed, he makes the guiding text 
for his examination. The Standard was then the 
organ of Lord Salisbury's Government, and it is 
as nearly certain as anything of the sort can be, 
that the letter signed "Diplomaticus" was writ- 
ten by the hand of the British Prime Minister, 
Lord Salisbury himself. 

How Mr. Asquith's Government in August 
1914 came suddenly to extemporize a wholly 
different view of England's obligations to Bel- 
gium is excellently told by that inveterate diarist 
and chronicler, Mr. Wilfred Scawen Blunt: 

The obligation of fighting in alliance with France in 
case of a war with Germany concerned the honour of 
three members only of Asquith's Cabinet, who alone 
were aware of the exact promises that had been made. 

[46] 



These, though given verbally and with reservations as 
to the consent of Parliament, bound the three as a matter 
of personal honour, and were understood at the Quai 
d'Orsay as binding the British nation. Neither Asquith 
nor his two companions ^ in this inner Cabinet could 
have retained office had they gone back from their word 
in spirit or in letter. It would also doubtless have en- 
tailed a serious quarrel with the French Government 
had they failed to make it good. So clearly was the 
promise understood at Paris to be binding that President 
Poincare, when the crisis came, had written to King 
George reminding him of it as an engagement made 
between the two nations which he counted on His 
Majesty to keep. 

Thus faced, the case was laid before the Cabinet, but 
was found to fail as a convincing argument for war. 
It was then that Asquith, with his lawyer's instinct, 
at a second Cabinet meeting brought forward the neu- 
trality of Belgium as a better plea than the other to 
lay before a British jury, and by representing the neu- 
trality-treaties of 1831 and 1839 as entailing an obliga- 
tion on England to fight (of which the text of the 
treaties contains no word) obtained the Cabinet's consent, 
and war was declared. 

Belgium was not thought of by the British Cabi- 
net before 2 August, 1914. She was brought in 
then as a means of making the war go down with 
the British people. The fact is that Belgium 
was thoroughly prepared for war, thoroughly pre- 

1 Sir E. Grey and Lord Haldane. 

[47] 



pared for just what happened to her. Belgium 
was a party to the military arrangements effected 
among France, England and Russia; for this we 
have the testimony of Marshal Joifre before the 
Metallurgic Committee in Paris, and also the 
record of the "conversations" that were carried 
on in Brussels between the Belgian chief of staff 
and Lt.-Col. Barnardiston. On 24 July, 1914, 
the day when the Austrian note was presented to 
Serbia (the note of which Sir E. Grey had gotten 
an intimation as early as 16 July by telegraph 
from the British Ambassador at Vienna, Sir M. 
de Bunsen), the Belgian Foreign Minister, M. 
Davignon, promptly dispatched to all the Belgian 
embassies an identical communication containing 
the following statement, the significance of which 
is made clear by a glance at a map : 

All necessary steps to ensure respect of Belgian neu- 
trality have nevertheless been taken by the Govern- 
ment. The Belgian army has been mobilized and is 
taking up such strategic positions as have been chosen 
to secure the defence of the country and the respect of 
its neutrality. The forts of Antwerp and on the Meuse 
have been put in a state of defence. 

It was on the eastern frontier, we perceive, 
therefore — not on the western, where Belgium 
might have been invaded by France — that all the 

[48] 



available Belgian military force was concentrated. 
Hence, to pretend any longer that the Belgian 
Government was surprised by the action of Ger- 
many, or unprepared to meet it; to picture Ger- 
many and Belgium as cat and mouse, to under- 
stand the position of Belgium otherwise than 
that she was one of four solid allies under definite 
agreement worked out in complete practical de- 
tail, is sheer absurdity. 



[49] 



IX 



If the official theory of German responsibility were 
correct, it would be impossible to explain the Ger- 
man Government's choice of the year 1914 as a 
time to strike at "an unsuspecting and defenceless 
Europe." The figures quoted in Chapter III 
show that the military strength of Germany, rel- 
atively to that of the French-Russian-English 
combination, had been decreasing since 1910. If 
Germany had wished to strike at Europe, she had 
two first-rate chances, one in 1908 and another in 
1912, and not only let them both go by, but threw 
all her weight on the side of peace. This is in- 
explicable upon the theory that animates the 
treaty of Versailles. Germany was then in a po- 
sition of advantage. The occasion presented it- 
self in 1908, in Serbia's quarrel with Austria over 
the annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina. 
Russia, which was backing Serbia, was in no shape 
to fight; her military strength, used up in the 
Russo-Japanese war, had not recovered. France 
would not at this time have been willing to go to 

[50] 



war with Germany over her weak ally's commit- 
ments in the Danube States. Germany, however, 
contented herself with serving notice on the Tsar 
of her unequivocal support of Austria; and this 
was enough. The Tsar accepted the fait accom- 
pli of the annexation of Bosnia and the Herze- 
govina; Serbia retired and cooled off; and Turkey, 
from whom the annexed province was ravished, 
was compensated by Austria. It is not to the 
point to scrutinize the propriety of these transac- 
tions ; the point is that Germany held the peace of 
Europe in the hollow of her hand, with immense 
advantages in her favour, and chose not to close 
her hand. The comment of a neutral diplomat, 
the Belgian Minister in Berlin, is interesting. In 
his report of i April, 1909, to the Belgian For- 
eign Office, he says: 

The conference scheme elaborated by M. Isvolsky and 
Sir Edward Grey; the negotiations for collective repre- 
sentations in Vienna ; and the whole exchange of ideas 
among London, Paris and Petersburg, were steadily 
aimed at forcing Austria-Hungary into a transaction 
which would strongly have resembled a humiliation. 
This humiliation would have affected Germany as 
directly and as sensibly as Austria-Hungary, and would 
have struck a heavy blow at the confidence which is in- 
spired in Vienna by the alliance with Germany. These 
machinations were frustrated by Germany's absolutely 

[5«] 



unequivocal and decided attitude, from which she has 
never departed in spite of all the urgings with which 
she has been harassed* Germany alone has accomplished 
the preservation of peace. The new grouping of the 
Powers, organized by the King of England, has 
measured its forces with the alliance of the Central 
European Powers, and has shown itself incapable of 
impairing the same. Hence the vexation which is mani- 
fested. 

The last two sentences of the foregoing seem to 
show — putting it mildly — that the Belgian Min- 
ister did not suspect the German Government of 
any aggressive spirit. In the same dispatch, 
moreover, he remarks: 

As always, when everything does not go as the French, 
English or Russian politicians want it to, the Temps 
shows its bad temper. Germany is the scapegoat. 

Again, at the time of the Balkan War in 1912, 
Germany had an excellent opportunity to gratify 
her military ambition, if she had any, at the ex- 
pense of an "unsuspecting and unprepared Eur- 
ope" ; not as advantageous as in 1908 but more ad- 
vantageous than in 1914. Serbia's provocations 
against Austria-Hungary had become so great 
that the Austrian Archduke (assassinated in 1914 
at Sarajevo) told the German Emperor person- 
ally that they had reached the limit of endurance. 

[52] 



On this occasion also, however, William II put 
himself definitely on the side of peace, and in so 
doing left the Austrian Government somewhat 
disappointed and discontented. Another neu- 
tral diplomat reports of the German Foreign 
Minister that 

whatever plans he may have in his head (and he has 
big ideas), for v/inning the sympathies of the young 
Balkan Powers over to Germany, one thing is absolutely 
certain, and that is that he is rigidly determined to avoid 
a European conflagration. On this point the policy of 
Germany is similar to that of England and France, 
both of which countries are determinedly pacifist. 

Tliis is a fair statement of the English and 
French position in 1912. There was a great re- 
vulsion of feeling in England after her close 
shave of being dragged into war over Morocco 
and her sentiment was all for attending to certain 
pressing, domestic problems. Besides, it was 
only in November, 1911, and only through the in- 
discretion of a French newspaper, that the 
British public (and the British Parliament as 
well) had learned that the Anglo-French agree- 
ment of 1904 had secret articles attached to it, 
out of which had emanated the imbroglio over 
Morocco; and there was a considerable feeling of 
distrust towards the Foreign Office. In fact. Sir 

[53] 



E. Grey, the Foreign Minister, was so unpopular 
with his own party that quite probably he would 
have had to get out of office if he had not been 
sustained by Tory influence. Mr. W. T. Stead ex- 
pressed a quite general sentiment in the Review 
of Reviews for December, 1911: 

The fact remains that in order to put France in 
possession of Morocco, we all but went to war with 
Germany. We have escaped war, but we have not 
escaped the national and abiding enmity of the German 
people. Is it possible to frame a heavier indictment 
of the foreign policy of any British Ministry? The 
secret, the open secret, of this almost incredible crime 
against treaty-faith, British interests and the peace of 
the world, is the unfortunate fact that Sir Edward Grey 
has been dominated by men in the Foreign Office who 
believe all considerations must be subordinated to the 
one supreme duty of thwarting Germany at every turn, 
even if in doing so British interests, treaty-faith and 
the peace of the world are trampled underfoot. I 
speak that of which I know. 

This was strong language and it went with- 
out challenge, for too many Englishmen felt that 
way. In France, the Poincare-Millerand-Del- 
casse combination was getting well into the sad- 
dle; but with English public opinion in this not- 
ably undependable condition, English support 
of France, in spite of the secret agreement binding 



the two governments, was decidedly risky. There- 
upon France also was "determinedly pacifist." 
Now if Germany had been the prime mover in 
"the most dangerous conspiracy ever plotted 
against the liberty of nations," why did she not 
take advantage of that situation *? 

Russia, too, was "determinedly pacifist" in 
1912, and with good reason. There was a party 
of considerable influence in the Tsar's court that 
was strongly for going to war in behalf of Serbia, 
but it was finally headed off by the Foreign Min- 
ister, Sazonov, who knew the state of public 
opinion in England and its effect on France, and 
knew therefore that the French-Russian-English 
alliance was not yet in shape to take on large 
orders. It is true that the Foincare-Millerand- 
Delcasse war-party in France had proof enough 
in 1912 that it could count on the British Gov- 
ernment's support; and what France knew, Rus- 
sia knew. Undoubtedly, too, the British Gov- 
ernment would somehow, under some pretext or 
other, possibly Belgian neutrality, have contrived 
to redeem its obligations as it did in 1914. But 
the atmosphere of the country was not favour- 
able and the thing would have been diiRcult. Ac- 
cordingly, Sazonov saw that jit was best for him 
to restrain Serbia's impetuosity and truculence 

[55] 



for the time being — Russia herself being none too 
ready — and accordingly he did so. 

But how? The Serbian Minister at Peters- 
burg says that Sazonov told him that in view of 
Serbia's successes "he had confidence in our 
strength and believed that we would be able to 
deliver a blow at Austria, For that reason we 
should feel satisfied with what we were to receive, 
and consider it merely as a temporary halting- 
place on the road to further gains." On another 
occasion "Sazonov told me that we must work for 
the future because we would acquire a great deal 
of territory from Austria." The Serbian Min- 
ister at Bucharest says that his Russian and 
French colleagues counselled a policy of waiting 
"with as great a degree of preparedness as possible 
the impoTtant events which must make their ap- 
pearance among the Great Powers." How, one 
may ask, was the Russian Foreign OfBce able to 
look so far and so clearly into the future? If 
German responsibility for the war is funda- 
mental, a chose jugee^ as Mr. Lloyd George said 
it is, this seems a strange way for the Russian 
Foreign Minister to be talking, as far back as 
1912. But stranger still is the fact that the Ger- 
man Government did not jump in at this junc- 
ture instead of postponing its blow until 1914 

[56] 



when every one was apparently quite ready to 
receive it. When the historian of the future con- 
siders the theory of the Versailles treaty and con- 
siders the behaviour of the German Government 
in the crisis of 1908 and in the crisis of 1912, he 
will have to scratch his head a great deal to make 
them harmonize. 



[57] 



X 



By the spring of 1913, the diplomatic repre- 
sentatives of the Allied Danube States made no 
secret of the relations in which their Governments 
stood to the Tsar's Foreign Office. The Balkan 
League was put through by Russian influence and 
Russia controlled its diplomacy. Serbia was as 
completely the instrument of Russia as Poland is 
now the instrument of France. "If the Austrian 
troops invade Balkan territory," wrote Baron 
Beyens on 4 April, 1913, "it would give cause for 
Russia to intervene, and might let loose a uni- 
versal war." Now, if Germany had been plot- 
ting "with ruthless, cynical determination," as 
Mr. Lloyd George said, against the peace of Eu- 
rope, what inconceivable stupidity for her not to 
push Austria along rather than do everything pos- 
sible to hold her back! Why give Russia the 
benefit of eighteen months of valuable time for 
the feverish campaign of "preparedness" that 
she carried on"? Those eighteen months meant a 
great deal. In February, 1914, the Tsar ar- 

[58] 



ranged to provide the Serbian army with rifles 
and artillery, Serbia agreeing to put half a million 
soldiers in the field. In the same month Russia 
negotiated a French loan of about $100 million 
for improvements on her strategic railways and 
frontier-roads. During the spring, she made 
"test" mobilizations of large bodies of troops 
which were never demobilized, and these "test" 
mobilizations continued down to the outbreak of 
the war ; and in April Russian agents made techni- 
cal arrangements with agents of the British and 
French Admiralties for possible combined naval 
action. 

Yes, those eighteen months were very busy 
months for Russia. True, she came out at the 
end of them an "unprepared and unsuspecting" 
nation, presumably, for was not all Europe un- 
prepared and unsuspecting? Is it not so nom- 
inated in the Versailles treaty? One can not 
help wondering, however, how it is that Ger- 
many, "carefully, skilfully, insidiously, clandes- 
tinely planning in every detail" a murderous 
attack on the peace of Europe, should have given 
Russia the inestimable advantage of those eight- 
een months. 



[59] 



XI 



Mr. E. D. Morel, editor of the British monthly, 
Foreign Ajfahs^ performed more than a distin- 
guished service — it is a splendid, an illustrious 
service — to the disparaged cause of justice, when 
recently he translated and published in England 
through the National Labour Press, a series of 
remarkable State documents/ This consists of 
reports made by the Belgian diplomatic repre- 
sentatives at Paris, London and Berlin, to the 
Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, covering the 
period from 7 February, 1905 to 2 July, 1914. 
Their authenticity has never been questioned. 
They have received no notice in this country; 
their content and import were carefully kept 
from the American people as long as it was pos- 
sible to do so, and consequently they remain un- 
known except to a few who are students of inter- 
national affairs or who have some similar special 
interest. 

1 Under the title "Diplomacy Revealed." National Labour 
Press. 8 and 9 Johnson's Court, London, E.C., 4, England. 

[60] 



It can hardly be pretended by anyone that 
Belgian officials had, during that decade, any 
particular love or leaning towards Germany. 
The Belgian Foreign Office has always been as 
free from sentimental attachments as any other. 
It has always been governed by the same motives 
that govern the British, French, German and 
Russian Foreign Offices. Its number, like theirs, 
was number one; it was out, first and last, for 
the interests of the Belgian Government, and it 
scrutinized every international transaction from 
the viewpoint of those interests and those only. 
It was fully aware of the position of Belgium 
as a mere "strategic corridor" and battle-ground 
for alien armies in case of a general European 
war, and aware that Belgium had simply to make 
the best of its bad outlook, for nothing else could 
be done. If the Belgian Foreign Office and its 
agents, moreover, had no special love for Ger- 
many, neither had they any special fear of her. 
They were in no more or deeper dread of a Ger- 
man invasion than of a British or French invasion. 
In fact, in 1911, the Belgian Minister at Berlin 
set forth in a most matter-of-fact way his be- 
lief that in the event of war, Belgian neutrality 
would be first violated by Great Britain.^ These 

1 This belief received some corroboration in the spring of 

[61] 



observers, in short, may on all accounts, as far 
as one can see, be accepted as neutral and dis- 
interested, with the peculiar disinterestedness of 
one who has no choice between two evils. 

Well, then, under the circumstances it is re- 
markable that if Germany during the ten years 
preceding August, 1914, were plotting against 
the peace of the world, these Belgian observers 
seem unaware of it. It is equally noteworthy 
that if Germany's assault were unprovoked, they 
seem unaware of that also. These documents re- 
late in an extremely matter-of-fact way a con- 
tinuous series of extraordinary provocations put 
upon the German Government, and moreover, 
they represent the behaviour of the German Gov- 
ernment, under these provocations, in a very 
favourable light. On the other hand, they show 
from beginning to end a most profound distrust 
of English diplomacy. If there is any uncer- 
tainty about the causes of ill-feeling between 
England and Germany, these Belgian officials 
certainly do not share it. They regularly speak 

1912, when in the course of military "conversations," the 
British Military Attache, Lieutenant-Colonel Bridges, told the 
Belgian Minister of War that if war had broken out over the 
Agadir incident in 1911, the British Government would have 
landed troops in Belgium with or without the Belgian Govern- 
ment's consent. So much did the British Government think 
of the "scrap of paper !" 

[62] 



of England's jealousy of Germany's economic 
competition, and the provocative attitude to 
which this jealousy gave rise. They speak of 
it, moreover, as though it were something that 
the Belgian Government were already well aware 
of; they speak of it in the tone of pure common- 
place, such as one might use in an incidental 
reference to the weather or to a tariff-schedule 
or to any other matter that is well understood 
and about which there is no difference of opinion 
and nothing new to be said. This is all the more 
remarkable in view of the fact that it was nom- 
inally to save Belgium and to defend the sanctity 
of Belgian neutrality that England entered the 
war in August, 1914. These Belgian agents are 
invariably suspicious of English diplomacy, as 
Mr. E. D. Morel points out, "mainly because 
they feel that it is tending to make the war 
which they dread for their country." They per- 
sistently and unanimously "insinuate that if left 
to themselves, France and Germany would reach 
a settlement of their differences, and that British 
diplomacy was being continually exercised to en- 
venom the controversy and to draw a circle of 
hostile alliances round Germany." This, indeed, 
under a specious concern for the "balance of 
power," has been the historic role of English 

[63] 



diplomacy. Every one remembers how in 1866, 
just before the Franco-Prussian war, Mr. Mat- 
thew Arnold's imaginary Prussian, Arminius 
von Thunder-ten-Tronckh, wrote to the editor of 
the Pall Mall Gazette, begging him to prevail 
upon his fellow-countrymen "for Heaven's sake 
not to go on biting, first the French Emperor's 
tail, and then ours." 

On 18 February, 1905, the Belgian Minister in 
Berlin reported thus: 

The real cause of the English hatred of Germany is 
the jealousy aroused by the astonishing development of 
Germany's merchant navy and of her commerce and 
manufactures. This hatred will last until the English 
have thoroughly learned to understand that the world's 
trade is not by rights an exclusively English monopoly. 
Moreover, it is studiously fostered by the Times and a 
whole string of other daily papers and periodicals that 
do not stop short of calumny in order to pander to the 
tastes of their readers. 

At that time the centre of the English navy 
had just been shifted to the North Sea, to the 
accompaniment of a very disturbing and, as at 
first reported, a very flamboyant speech from the 
Civil Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Lee. Of the 
sensation thereby created in Germany, the Belgian 
Minister says : 

[64] 



In informing the British public that Germany does not 
dream of any aggression against England, Count Biilow 
[the German Chancellor] said no more than what is 
recognized by every one who considers the matter dis- 
passionately. Germany would have nothing to gain 
from a contest. . . . The German fleet has been created 
with a purely defensive object. The small capacity of 
the coal-bunkers in her High Seas Fleet, and the small 
number of her cruisers, prove besides that her fleet is 
not intended for use at any distance from the coast. 

On the other hand, he remarks in the same re- 
port : 

It was obvious that the new disposition of the English 
navy was aimed at Germany ... it certainly is not be- 
cause of Russia, whose material stock is to a great ex- 
tent destroyed and whose navy has just given striking 
proof of incompetence [in the Russo-Japanese war]. 

Such is the tone uniformly adopted by these 
neutral observers throughout their reports from 
1905 to 1914. On 24 October, 1905, the Bel- 
gian Minister in Paris wrote : 

England, in her efforts to maintain her supremacy and 
to hinder the development of her great German rival, is 
evidently inspired by the wish to avoid a conflict, but 
are not her selfish aims in themselves bringing it upon 
us ? . . . She thought, when she concluded the Japanese 
alliance and gradually drew France into similar ties, 
that she had found the means to her end, by sufficiently 

[65] 



paralysing Germany's powers as to make war impos- 
sible. 

This view of the Anglo-Japanese alliance is 
interesting and significant, especially now when 
that instrument is coming up for renewal, with 
the United States standing towards England in 
the same relation of economic competitorship that 
Germany occupied in 1905. True, Viscount 
Bryce assured the Institute of Politics at Wil- 
liams College last summer that it was not Ger- 
many's economic rivalry that disturbed England; 
but on this point it would be highly advantageous 
for the people of the United States, while there 
is yet time, to read what the Belgian Minister in 
Berlin had to say on 27 October, 1905: 

A very large number of Germans are convinced that 
England is either seeking allies for an attack upon Ger- 
many, or else, which would be more in accordance v^^ith 
British tradition, that she is labouring to provoke a Con- 
tinental war in which she would not join, but of which 
she would reap the profit. 

I am told that many English people are troubled with 
similar fears and go in dread of German aggression. 

I am puzzled upon what foundations such an im- 
pression in London can be based. Germany is absolutely 
incapable of attacking England. . . . Are these people 
in England really sincere who go about expressing fears 
of a German invasion which could not materialize? 

[66] 



Are they not rather pretending to be afraid of it in 
order to bring on a war which would annihilate Ger- 
many's navy, her merchant-fleet and her foreign com- 
merce ? Germany is as vulnerable to attack as Eng- 
land is safe from it; and if England were to attack Ger- 
many merely for the sake of extinguishing a rival, it 
would only be in accordance with her old precedents. 

In turn she wiped out the Dutch fleet, with the as- 
sistance of Louis XIV ; then the French fleet ; and the 
Danish fleet she even destroyed in time of peace and 
without any provocation, simply because it constituted 
a naval force of some magnitude. 

There are no ostensible grounds for war between Ger- 
many and England. The English hatred for Germany 
arises solely from jealousy of Germany's progress in 
shipping, in commerce and in manufacture. 

Baron Greindl here presents an opinion very 
different from that in which the majority of 
Americans have been instructed; and before they 
accept further instruction at the hands of Vis- 
count Bryce, they had better look into the matter 
somewhat for themselves. 

Baron Greindl wrote the foregoing in October. 
In December, the head of the British Admiralty, 
Sir John Fisher, assured Colonel Repington that 
"Admiral Wilson's Channel fleet was alone strong 
enough to smash the whole German fleet." Two 
years later. Sir John Fisher wrote to King Ed- 

[67] 



ward VII that "it is an absolute fact that Germany- 
has not laid down a single dreadnaught, nor has 
she commenced building a single battleship or 
big cruiser for eighteen months. . . . England 
has , . , ten dreadnaughts built and building, 
while Germany in March last had not even be- 
gun one dreadnaught ... we have 123 de- 
stroyers and forty submarines. The Germans 
have forty-eight destroyers and one submarine." 
Hence, if Sir John Fisher knew what he was 
talking about, and in such matters he usually did, 
he furnishes a very considerable corroboration of 
Baron Greindl's view of the German navy up to 
1905. Looking back at the third chapter of this 
book, which deals with the comparative strength 
of the two navies and naval groups as developed 
from 1905 to 1914, the reader may well raise 
again Baron Greindl's question, "Are those people 
in England really sincere'?" 



[68] 



XII 

Such is the inveterate suspicion, the melancholy 
distrust, put upon English diplomacy by these 
foreign and neutral observers who could see so 
plainly what would befall their own country in 
the event of a European war. Such too, was the 
responsibility which these observers regularly im- 
puted to the British Foreign Office — the British 
Foreign Office which was so soon to fix upon 
the neutrality of Belgium as a casus belli and 
pour out streams of propaganda about the sanctity 
of treaties and the rights of small nations! 
Every one of these observers exhibits this sus- 
picion and distrust. In March, 1906, when 
Edward VII visited Paris and invited the dis- 
credited ex-Minister Delcasse to breakfast, the 
Belgian Minister at Paris wrote : 

It looks as though the king wished to demonstrate that 
the policy which called forth Germany's active inter- 
, vention [over Morocco] has nevertheless remained un- 
changed. ... In French circles it is not over well re- 
ceived; Frenchmen feeling that they are being dragged 
against their will in the orbit of English policy, a policy 

[69] 



whose consequences they dread, and which they generally 
condenxned by throwing over M. Delcasse. In short, 
people fear that this is a sign that England wants so to 
envenom the situation that war will become inevitable. 

On 10 February, 1907, when the English King 
and Queen visited Paris, he says: "One can 
not conceal from oneself that these tactics, though 
their ostensible object is to prevent war, are 
likely to arouse great dissatisfaction in Berlin and 
to stir up a desire to risk anything that may en- 
able Germany to burst the ring which England's 
policy is tightening around her." On 28 March, 
1907, the Belgian charge d'affaires in London 
speaks of "English diplomacy, whose whole effort 
is directed to the isolation of Germany." On the 
same date, by a curious coincidence, the Minister 
at Berlin, in the course of a blistering arraign- 
ment of French policy in Morocco, says: "But 
at the bottom of every settlement that has been 
made, or is going to be made, there lurks always 
that hatred of Germany. . . , It is a sequence 
of the campaign very cleverly conducted with the 
object of isolating Germany. . . . The English 
press is carrying on its campaign of calumny 
more implacably than ever. It sees the finger of 
Germany in everything that goes contrary to 
English wishes." On 18 April, 1907, Baron 

[70] 



Greindl says of the King of England's visit to 
the King of Spain that, like the alliances with 
Japan and France and the negotiations with 
Russia, it is "one of the moves in the campaign 
to isolate Germany that is being personally 
directed with as much perseverance as success by 
His Majesty King Edward VII." In the same 
dispatch he remarks: "There is some right to 
regard with suspicion this eagerness to unite, 
for a so-called defensive object. Powers who are 
menaced by nobody. At Berlin they can not 
forget that offer of 100,000 men made by the 
King of England to M. Delcasse." 

On 24 May, 1907, the Minister at London re- 
ported that "it is plain that official England is 
pursuing a policy that is covertly hostile, and 
tending to result in the isolation of Germany, and 
that King Edward has not been above putting his 
personal influence at the service of this cause." 
On 19 June, 1907, Count de Lalaing again writes 
from London of the Anglo-Franco-Spanish agree- 
ment concerning the status quo in the Mediterra- 
nean region, that "it is, however, difficult to im- 
agine that Germany will not regard it as a further 
step in England's policy, which is determined, 
by every sort of means, to isolate the German 
Empire." 

[71] 



Perusal of these documents from beginning to 
end will show nothing to offset against the view 
of English diplomacy exhibited in the foregoing 
quotations; nothing to modify or qualify that 
view in any way. Baron Greindl, however, 
speaks highly of the British Ambassador at Ber- 
lin, Sir F. Lascelles, and praises his personal and 
unsupported attempt to establish friendly rela- 
tions between England and Germany. Of this 
he says: "I have been a witness for the last 
twelve years of the efforts he has made to accom- 
plish it. And yet, possessing as he justly does 
the absolute confidence of the Emperor and the 
German Government, and eminently gifted with 
the qualities of a statesman, he has nevertheless 
not succeeded very well so far." The next year, 
1908, when Sir F. Lascelles was forced to resign 
his post, Baron Greindl does not hesitate to say 
that "the zeal with which he has worked to dis- 
pel misunderstandings that he thought absurd and 
highly mischievous for both countries, does not 
fall in with the political views of his sovereign." 



[72] 



XIII 

King Edward VII died 6 May, 1910. During 
the early part of 1911, the Belgian Ministers in 
London, Paris and Berlin report some indications 
of a less unfriendly policy towards Germany on 
the part of the British Government. In March 
of that year. Sir Edward Grey delivered a reas- 
suring speech on British foreign policy, on the 
occasion of the debate on the naval budget. The 
Belgian Minister in Berlin says of this that it 
should have produced the most agreeable impres- 
sion in Germany if one could confidentl)^ believe 
that it really entirely reflected the ideas of the 
British Government. It would imply, he says, 
that "England no longer wishes to give to the 
Triple Entente the aggressive character which was 
stamped upon it by its creator, King Edward 
VII." He remarks, however, the slight effect pro- 
duced in Berlin by Sir E. Grey's speech, and infers 
that German public feeling may have "become 
dulled by the innumerable meetings and mutual 
demonstrations of courtesy which have never pro- 

[73] 



duced any positive result," and he adds signifi- 
cantly that "this distrust is comprehensible." 

It must be remembered that at the time this 
speech was delivered, England was under a secret 
agreement dating from 1904 to secure France's 
economic monopoly in Morocco. England was 
also under a secret obligation to France, dating 
from 1906, to support her in case of war with 
Germany. It must be above all remembered that 
this latter obligation carried with it a contingent 
liability for the Franco-Russian military alliance 
that had been in effect for many years. Thus if 
Russia went to war with Germany, France was 
committed, and in turn England was committed. 
The whole force of the Triple Entente lay in 
these agreements; and it can not be too often 
pointed out that they were secret agreements. 
No one in England knew until November, 1911, 
that in 1904 the British Government had bar- 
gained with the French Government, in return 
for a free hand in Egypt, to permit France to 
squeeze German economic interests out of Mo- 
rocco — in violation of a published agreement, 
signed by all the interested nations, concerning 
the status of Morocco. No one in England 
knew until 3 August, 1914, that England had for 
several years been under a military and naval 

[74] 



agreement with France which carried the enor- 
mous contingent liability of the Franco-Russian 
military alliance. No matter what appeared on 
the surface of politics; no matter how many 
pacific speeches were made by Sir E. Grey and 
Mr, Asquith, no matter what the newspapers 
said, no matter how often and how impressively 
Lord Haldane might visit Berlin in behalf of 
peace and good feeling; those secret agreements 
held^ they were the only things that did hold, 
and everything worked out in strict accordance 
with them and with nothing else, least of all 
with any public understanding or any statement 
of policy put out for public consumption. It was 
just as in the subsequent case of the armistice 
and the peace — and this is something that has 
been far too little noticed in this country. The 
real terms of the armistice and of the peace were 
not the terms of the Fourteen Points or of any 
of the multitudinous published statements of 
Allied war aims. On the contrary, they were the 
precise terms of the secret treaties made am^ong 
the Allied belligerents during the war, and made 
public on their discovery by the Soviet Govern- 
ment in the archives of the Tsarist Foreign Office. 
It is no wonder then, that the German Govern- 
ment was not particularly impressed by Sir E. 

[75] 



Grey's speech, especially as Germany saw France 
helping herself to Moroccan territory with both 
hands, and England looking on in indifferent 
complacency. In May, 191 1, on a most transpar- 
ent and preposterous pretext, a French army was 
ordered to m.arch on Fez, the capital of Morocco. 
The German Government then informed France 
that as the Algeciras Act, which guaranteed the 
integrity and independence of Morocco, had 
thereby gone by the board, Germany would no 
longer consider herself bound by its provisions. 
In June, 30,000 French troops "relieved" Fez, 
occupied it and stayed there, evincing no inten- 
tion whatever of getting out again, notwith- 
standing that the ostensible purpose of the ex- 
pedition was accomplished; in reality, there was 
nothing to accomplish. Two months before this 
coup d'etat^ Baron Greindl, the Belgian Minister 
at Berlin, wrote to the Belgian Foreign Office as 
follows : 

Every illusion, if ever entertained on the value of 
the Algeciras Act, which France signed with the firm in- 
tention of never observing, must long since have vanished. 
She has not ceased for one moment to pursue her plans 
of annexation ; either by seizing opportunities for pro- 
visional occupations destined to last for ever or by ex- 
torting concessions which have placed the Sultan in a 

[76] 



position of dependence upon France, and which have 
gradually lowered him to the level of the Bey of Tunis. 

A week later, 29 April, Baron Guillaume, who 
had succeeded M. Leghait as Belgian Minister in 
Paris, reported that "there are, so far, no grounds 
for fearing that the French expedition will bring 
about any disturbance of international policy. 
Germany is a calm spectator of events." He 
adds, significantly, "England, having thrust 
France into the Moroccan bog, is contemplating 
her work with satisfaction." 

France professed publicly that the object of 
this expedition was to extricate certain foreigners 
who were imperilled at Fez; and having done 
so, she would withdraw her forces. The precious 
crew of concessionaires, profiteers, and dividend- 
hunters known as the Comite du Maroc had sud- 
denly discovered a whole French colony living in 
Fez in a state of terror and distress. There was, 
in fact, nothing of the sort. Fez was never 
menaced, it was never short of provisions, and 
there were no foreigners in trouble. When the 
expeditionary force arrived, it found no one to 
shoot at. As M. Francis de Pressense says: 

Those redoubtable rebels who were threatening Fez 
had disappeared like dew in the morning. Barely did 

[77] 



a few ragged horsemen fire off a shot or two before turn- 
ing around and riding away at a furious gallop. A too 
disingenuous, or too truthful, correspondent gave the 
show away. The expeditionary force complains, he 
gravely records, of the absence of the enemy; the 
approaching harvest season is keeping all the healthy 
males in the fields ! Thus did the phantom so dex- 
terously conjured by the Comite du Maroc for the benefit 
of its aims, disappear in a night. 

Nevertheless, the expeditionary force did not, 
in accordance with the public professions of the 
French Government, march out of Fez as soon 
as it discovered this ridiculous mare's nest. It 
remained there and held possession of the Moorish 
capital. What was the attitude of the British 
Government in the premises'? On 2 May, in the 
House of Commons, Sir Edward Grey said that 
"the action taken by France is not intended to 
alter the political status of Morocco, and His 
Majesty's Government can not see why any ob- 
jection should be taken to it." 

Germany had remained for eight years a toler- 
ant observer of French encroachments in Morocco, 
and quite clearly, as Baron Greindl observes in 
his report of 21 April, 1911, could not "after 
eight years of tolerance, change her attitude un- 
less she were determined to go to war, and war 

[78] 



is immeasurably more than Morocco is worth." 
In July, 1911, however, while the French force 
of 30,000 was still occupying Fez, Germany dis- 
patched a gunboat, the "Panther," which an- 
chored off the coast of Agadir. 



[79] 



XIV 

This was the famous "Agadir incjident," of which 
we have all heard. Did it mean that the worm 
had turned, that Germany had changed her atti- 
tude and was determined to go to war*? It has 
been so represented; but there are many difficult 
inconsistencies involved in that explanation of the 
German Government's act, and there is also an 
alternative explanation which fits the facts far 
better. In the first place the "Panther" was 
hardly more than an ocean-going tug. She was 
of looo tons burden, mounting two small naval 
guns, six machine-guns, and she carried a com- 
plement of only 125 men. Second, she never 
landed a man upon the coast of Morocco. She 
chose for her anchorage a point where the coast 
is practically inaccessible ; Agadir has no harbour, 
and there is nothing near it that offers any possible 
temptation to the predatory instinct. No more 
ostentatiously unimpressive and unmenacing dem- 
onstration could have been devised. Germany, 
too, was quite well aware that Morocco was not 

[80] 



worth a European war; and as Baron Guillaume 
said in his report of 29 April, "possibly she [Ger- 
many] is congratulating herself on the difficulties 
that weigh upon the shoulders of the French Gov- 
ernment, and asks nothing better than to keep 
out of the whole affair as long as she is not 
forced into it by economic considerations." But 
the most significant indication that Germany had 
not changed her attitude is in the fact that if 
she were determined upon war, then, rather than 
two years later, was her time to go about it. 
This aspect of Germany's behaviour has been 
dealt with in a previous chapter. It can not 
be too often reiterated that if Germany really 
wanted war and was determined upon war, her 
failure to strike in 1908, when Russia was pros- 
trate and France unready, and again in 1912, 
a few months after the Agadir incident, when the 
Balkan war was on, is inexplicable.^ 

1 Critics of German foreign policy are hard put to it to show 
that she was ever guided by territorial ambitions; which is an 
extremely troublesome thing when one wants to believe that she 
proposed in 1914 to put the world under a military despotism. 
Can any one show where in a single instance she ever de- 
manded anything more than economic equality with other 
nations, in a foreign market? Certainly she never demanded 
more than this in Morocco. Ex-Premier Caillaux says that 
his predecessor Rouvier offered Germany a good Moroccan port 
(Mogador) and some adjoining territory, and Germany de- 
clined. 

[81] 



The dispatch of the "Panther" gave the three 
Belgian observers a great surprise, and they were 
much puzzled to account for it. Baron Guil- 
laume's thoughts at once turned to England. He 
writes 2 July : 

It was long regarded as an axiom that England would 
never allow the Germans to establish themselves at any 
point of Moroccan territory. Has this policy been aban- 
doned; and if so, at what price were they bought off? 

During the month of July, while waiting for 
a statement from the British Foreign Office, the 
Belgian observers canvassed the possibility that 
Germany's action was a hint that she would like 
some territorial compensation for having been 
bilked out of her share in the Moroccan market. 
But the interesting fact, and for the purpose of 
this book the important fact, is that none of these 
diplomats shows the slightest suspicion that Ger- 
many was bent on war or that she had any 
thought of going to war. Baron Guillaume says, 
28 July, "undoubtedly the present situation wears 
a serious aspect. . , . Nobody, however, wants 
war, and they will try to avoid it." He pro- 
ceeds : 

The French Government knows that a war would be 
the death-knell of the Republic. ... I have very great 

[82] 



confidence in the Emperor William's love of peace, not- 
withstanding the not infrequent air of melodrama about 
what he says and does. . . . Germany can not go to 
war for the sake of Morocco, nor yet to exact payment 
of those compensations that she very reasonably demands 
for the French occupation of Fez, which has become more 
or less permanent. On the whole I feel less faith in 
Great Britain's desire for peace. She would not be 
sorry to see the others destroying one another; only, 
under those circumstances, it would be difficult for her 
to avoid armed intervention. ... As I thought from 
the very first, the crux of the situation is in London. 

By the end of July, a different conception of 
Germany's action seemed to prevail. It began 
to be seen that the episode of the "Panther" had 
been staged by way of calling for a show-down 
on the actual intentions and purposes of the 
Triple Entente; and it got one. Mr. Lloyd 
George, "the impulsive Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer," as Count de Lalaing calls him, made 
a typical jingo speech at the Mansion House; a 
speech which the Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, 
and Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Minister, had 
helped him to compose. The air was cleared at 
once — England stood by France — and what better 
plan could have been devised for clearing the 
air than the dispatch of the "Panther"? Ger- 
many stood for the policy of economic equality, 

[83] 



the policy of the open door to which all the 
Powers interested had agreed in the case of 
Morocco. France, at the end of a course of con- 
tinuous aggression, had put 30,000 troops in oc- 
cupation of the capital of Morocco on an infa- 
mously unscrupulous pretext, and put them there 
to stay, and the British Government "could not 
see why any objection should be taken to it." 
Germany, on the other hand, anchored an in- 
significant gunboat off an inaccessible coast, and 
without landing a man or firing a shot, left her 
there as a silent reminder of the Algeciras Act 
and the principle of the open door — carefully and 
even ostentatiously going no further — and the 
British Government promptly, through the mouth 
of Mr. Lloyd George, laid down a challenge and 
a threat. Thereupon Germany and France under- 
stood their relative positions; they understood, 
even without Sir E. Grey's explicit reaffirmation 
of 27 November of the policy of the Triple En- 
tente, that England would stand by her arrange- 
ments with France. Baron Greindl writes from 
Berlin 6 December, and puts the case explicitly: 

Was it not assuming the right of veto on German 
enterprise for England to start a hue and cry because a 
German cruiser cast anchor in the roads of Agadir, 
seeing that she had looked on without a murmur whilst 

[84] 



France and Spain had proceeded step by step to conquer 
Morocco and to destroy the independence of its Sultan? 
England could not have acted otherwise. She was 
tied by her secret treaty with France. The explanation 
was extremely simple, but it was not of a sort to allay 
German irritation. 



[85] 



XV 



Let us glance at British political chronology for 
a moment. King Edward VII, the chief factor 
in the Entente, the moving spirit in England's 
foreign alliances, had been dead a year. In 
December, 1905, the Liberal party had come into 
power. In April, 1908, Mr. H. H. Asquith be- 
came Prime Minister. In 1910, Anglo-German 
relations were apparently improving; in July, 
1910, Mr. Asquith spoke of them in the House 
of Commons as "of the most cordial character. 
I look forward to increasing warmth and fervour 
and intimacy in these relations year by year." 
The great question was, then, in 1911, whether 
the Liberal Government would actually, when it 
came down to the pinch, stick by its secret cove- 
nant with France. Were the new Liberals, were 
Mr. Asquith, Lord Haldane, Sir. E. Grey, Mr. 
Lloyd George, true-blue Liberal imperialists, or 
were they not? Could France and Russia safely 
trust them to continue the Foreign Office policy 
that Lord Lansdowne had bequeathed to Sir E. 

[86] 



Grey; or, when the emergency came, would they 
stand from under'? After all, there had been a 
Campbell- Bannerman; there was no doubt of 
that; and one, at least, of the new Liberals, Mr. 
Lloyd George, had a bad anti-imperialist record 
in the South African war. 

The Agadir incident elicited a satisfactory 
answer to these questions. The Liberal Govern- 
ment was dependable. However suspiciously the 
members of the Liberal Cabinet might talk, they 
were good staunch imperialists at heart. They 
were, as the theologians say, "sound on the es- 
sentials." Baron Greindl wrote, 6 December, 
1911 : 

The Entente Cordiale was founded, not on the pos- 
itive basis of defence of common interests, but on the 
negative one of hatred of the German Empire. . . . Sir 
Edward Grey adopts this tradition without reservation. 
He imagines that it is in conformity with English in- 
terests. ... A revision of Great Britain's poHcy is all 
the less to be looked for, as ever since the Liberal Min- 
istry took office, and more especially during the last 
few months, English foreign policy has been guided by 
the ideas with which King Edward VII inspired it. 



[87] 



XVI 

Mr. Lloyd George's speech at the Mansion 
House in July, 1911, after the German gunboat 
"Panther" had anchored off the Moroccan coast, 
gave an immense impulse to the jingo spirit in 
France, because it was taken as definite assurance 
of England's good faith in seeing her secret agree- 
ments through to a finish. M. Caillaux, the 
French Premier, appears to have had his doubts, 
nevertheless, inasmuch as the British Foreign 
Office did not give a straight reply to the French 
Foreign Office's inquiry concerning British action 
in case the Germans landed a force in Morocco. 
He says: 

Are we to understand that our powerful neighbours will 
go right through to the end with the resolve which they 
suggest"? Are they ready for all eventualities'? The 
British Ambassador, Sir Francis Bertie, with whom I 
converse, does not give me formal assurances. It is said, 
of course, that he would see without displeasure the out- 
break of a conflict between France and Germany; his 
mind works in the way attributed to a number of leading 
British officials at the Foreign Office. 

[88] 



M. Caillaux here suggests the same suspicion of 
British intentions which the Belgian diplomats at 
London, Paris and Berlin intimate continually 
throughout their correspondence since 1905.^ He 
accordingly favoured a less energetic policy to- 
wards Germany, and was thrown out of office. 
Count de Lalaing reported from London, 15 Jan- 
uary, 1912, that the revelations which provoked 
this political crisis were disagreeable for the 
English Government. "They seem to prove," 
he says, "that the French Premier had been try- 
ing to negotiate with Berlin without the knowl- 
edge of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and his 
other colleagues, and this is naturally disquiet- 
ing to a Government whose interests are bound 
up with those of France, and which accordingly 
can ill tolerate any lapses of this kind." He 
adds: 

These revelations have also strengthened the im- 
pression that M. Caillaux had recently favoured an 
ultra-conciliatory policy towards Germany, and this im- 
pression was felt all the more painfully in English of- 
ficial circles, as the full extent of the tension between 
London and Berlin caused by the Cabinet of St. James's 
loyal behaviour towards the Cabinet at Paris had hardly 

1 This is worth noticing since M. Caillaux was the pioneer 
victim of the charge of being "pro-German." 

[89] 



been grasped. People in England are reluctant to face 
the fact that they have been 'more royalist than the King,' 
and have shown themselves even less accommo- 
dating than the friend they were backing. . . . Accord- 
ingly the press unanimously hails with delight the de- 
parture of M. Caillaux, and trusts that sounder tradi- 
tions may be reverted to without delay. 



This comment on the position of M. Caillaux 
one of the most interes 
found in these documents. 



is one of the most interesting observations to be 



[90] 



XVII 

The Balkan war took place in 1912, and the 
whole history of the year shows the most mighty 
efforts of European politicians — efforts which 
seem ludicrous and laughable in spite of their 
tragic quality — to avert with their left hand the 
war which they were bringing on with their right. 
Mr. Lloyd George is right in saying that no one 
really wanted war. What every one wanted, and 
what every one was trying with might and main 
to do, was to cook the omelette of economic im- 
perialism without breaking any eggs. There was 
in all the countries, naturally, a jingo nationalist 
party which wanted war. In Russia, which was 
then busily reorganizing her military forces which 
had been used up and left prostrate by the war 
with the Japanese, the pan-Slavists were influ- 
ential and vociferous, but they were not on top. 
In England there was a great popular revulsion 
against the behaviour of the Government which 
had so nearly involved the English in a war 
against Germany the year before; and Mr. As- 

[91] 



quith's Government, which was pacifist in ten- 
dency, was meeting the popular sentiment in 
every way possible, short of the one point of re- 
vealing the secret engagements which bound it to 
the French Government and contingently to the 
Russian Government. Lord Haldane undertook 
an official mission to Berlin, which was attended 
with great publicity and was popularly supposed 
to be of a pacificatory nature; and really, within 
the limits of the Franco-English diplomatic agree- 
ment, it went as far as it could in the establish- 
ment of good relations. In fact, of course, it 
came to nothing; as long as the diplomatic agree- 
ment remained in force, it could come to noth- 
ing, nothing of the sort could come to anything; 
and the diplomatic agreement being guarded as 
a close secret, the reason why it must come to 
nothing was not apparent. The German Gov- 
ernment also made tremendous efforts in behalf 
of peace; and it must be noted by those who ac- 
cept the theory upon which the treaty of Ver- 
sailles is based, that if Germany had wished or 
mtended at any time to strike at the peace of 
Europe, now was the moment for her to do so. 
Instead, the German Emperor in person, and the 
German Government, through one of its best dip- 
lomatic agents, Baron von Marschall, met every 

[92] 



pacific overture more than half-way, and them- 
selves initiated all that could be thought of. 
"There is no doubt," wrote Baron Beyens from 
Berlin, "that the Emperor, the Chancellor and 
the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (von 
Kiderlen-Wachter) are passionately pacifists." 
Baron Beyens again says, 28 June, 1912, "The 
Emperor is persistent and has not given up hopes 
of winning back English sympathies, just as he 
has succeeded up to a certain point in obtaining 
the confidence of the Tsar, by the force of his 
personal attractions." Those who believe in the 
extraordinary notion of an unprepared and un- 
suspecting Europe, should read the diplomatic 
history of the year 1912, when all the chief office- 
holders in England and on the Continent were 
struggling like men caught in a quicksand, or 
like flies on fly-paper, to avert, or if they could 
not avert, to defer the inevitable war. 

In one country, however, the jingo nationalist 
and militarist party came on top; and that 
country was France. M. Caillaux was succeeded 
by Raymond Poincare; and in January, 1913, 
Poincare became President of the Republic. Up 
to 1912, the people of France were increasingly 
indisposed to war and were developing a con- 
siderable impatience with militarism, and the 

[93] 



French Government was responsive to this sen- 
timent. It knew, as Baron Guillaume remarked 
at the time of the Agadir incident, that "a wai 
would be the death-knell of the Republic." M. 
Caillaux seems to have measured the feelings of 
his countrymen quite well. Baron Guillaume 
says that after the dispatch of the "Panther," 
the British Cabinet's first proposal was that the 
British and French Governments should each 
immediately send two men-of-war to Agadir ; and 
that the French Cabinet strongly objected. 
Again, he says in his report of 8 July, 1911, "I 
am persuaded that Messrs. Caillaux and de Selves 
regret the turn given to the Moroccan aifair by 
their predecessors in office. They were quite 
read)^ to give way, provided they could do so 
without humiliation." 

The speech of Mr. Lloyd George at the Man- 
sion House, however, which was taken by the 
French (and how correctly they took it became 
apparent on 3 August, 1914) as a definite assur- 
ance of British support against Germany, gave 
the militarist-nationalist party the encourage- 
ment to go ahead and dominate the domestic pol- 
itics of France. It put the Foincare-Millerand- 
Delcasse element on its feet and stiffened its res- 
olution, besides clearing the way in large measure 

[94] 



1. 



for its predominance. On 14 February, 1913, 
Baron Guillaume reports from Paris thus : 

The new President of the Republic enjoys a popu- 
larity in France to-day unknown to any of his predeces- 
sors. . . . Various factors contribute to explain his 
popularity. His election had been carefully prepared 
in advance; people are pleased at the skilful way in 
which, while a Minister, he manoeuvred to bring France 
to the fore in the concert of Europe ; he has hit upon some 
happy phrases that stick in the popular mind. 

The career of M. Poincare, in fact, and his 
management of popular sentiment, show many 
features which mutatis mutandis^ find a parallel 
in the career of Theodore Roosevelt. Baron 
Guillaume adds, however, this extremely striking 
observation concerning the popularity of M. Poin- 
care : 

But above all, one must regard it as a manifestation 
of the old French chauvinistic spirit, which had for 
many years slumbered, but which had come to life again 
since the affair of Agadir. 

In the same communication to the Belgian For- 
eign Office, Baron Guillaume remarks: 

M. Poincare is a native of Lorraine, and loses no op- 
portunity of telling people so. He was M. Millerand's 
colleague, and the instigator of his militarist policy. 

Finally, the first word that he uttered at the very 

[95] 



moment when he learned that he was elected President of 
the Republic, was a promise that he would watch over and 
maintain all the means of national defence. 

M. Poincare had not been in office two months 
when he recalled the French Ambassador at 
Petersburg, M. Georges Louis, and appointed in 
his stead M. Delcasse. Concerning this stupen- 
dous move, Baron Guillaume reported 21 Feb- 
ruary, 1913, to the Belgian Foreign Office thus: 

The news that M. Delcasse is shortly to be appointed 
Ambassador at Petersburg burst like a bomb here yester- 
day afternoon. . . . He was one of the architects of the 
Franco-Russian alliance, and still more so of the Anglo- 
French entente. 

Baron Guillaume goes on to say that he does 
not think that M. Delcasse's appointment should 
be interpreted as a demonstration against Ger- 
many; but he adds: 

I do think, however, that M. Poincare, a Lorrainer, was 
not sorry to show, from the first day of entering on his 
high office, how anxious he is to stand firm and hold aloft 
the national flag. That is the danger involved in having 
M. Poincare at the Elysee in these anxious days through 
which Europe is passing. It was under his Ministry that 
the militarist, slightly bellicose instincts of the French 
woke up again. He has been thought to have a measure 
of responsibility for this change of mood. 

[96] 



M. Georges Louis, who had represented the 
French Government at Petersburg for three years, 
was a resolute opponent of the militarist faction 
in France, and was therefore distinctly persona 
non grata to the corresponding faction in Russia. 
At the head of this faction stood Isvolsky, who was 
a friend of M. Foincare and a kindred spirit; 
hence when M. Foincare became Fremier, an 
attempt was made to oust M. Louis, but it was 
unsuccessful. M. Delcasse, on the other hand, is 
described by Mr. Morel as "the man identified 
more than any other man in French public life 
with the anti-German war-party." Mr. Morel, 
in commenting on the appointment of M. Del- 
casse quotes the following from a report sent by 
the Russian Ambassador in London to the Foreign 
Office in Petersburg. It was written four days 
after the appointment of M. Delcasse, and quite 
bears out the impression made upon the Belgian 
agents.^ 

When I recall his [M. Cambon, the French Ambas- 
sador in London] conversations with me, and the attitude 
of Foincare, the thought comes to me as a conviction, 
that of all the powers France is the only one which, not 
to say that it wishes war, would yet look upon it with- 

1 But perhaps Count Beuckendorf was pro-German, too! 

[97] 



out great regret. . . . She [France] has, either rightly 
or wrongly, complete trust in her army; the old effer- 
vescing minority has again shown itself. 



[98] 



XVIII 

The French war-party, represented by MM. 
Poincare, Millerand and Delcasse, came into pol- 
itical predominance in January, 1912, and con- 
solidated its ascendancy one year later, when M. 
Raymond Poincare became President of the 
French Republic. All through 1912 there was 
an immense amount of correspondence and con- 
sultation between the French and Russian Gov- 
ernments, and all through 1913 Russia showed 
extraordinary activity in military preparation. 
In England, Mr. Asquith's Government had to 
face a strong revulsion of popular feeling against 
the attitude of its diplomacy, which had so nearly 
involved the country in war with Germany at 
the time of the Agadir incident. 

As always, the figures of expenditure tell the 
story; and the history of 1912-14 should be con- 
tinually illustrated by reference to the financial 
statistics of the period, which have been given in 
earlier chapters. For instance, Russia, which 
spent (in round numbers) £3^ million on new 

[99] 



naval construction in 1911, spent £7 million in 
1912, £12 million in 1913, and £13 million in 
1914. The fact that, as Professor Raymond 
Beazley puts it, in the ten years before the war, 
and with increasing insistence, Paris and St. 
Petersburg spent upon armaments £159 million 
more than Berlin or Vienna, ought to suffice at 
least to reopen the question of responsibility. 

It must be carefully noted that by the spring of 
1912, the Balkan League, which was engineered 
by the Russian diplomat Hartwig, was fully 
formed. This put the diplomacy of the Balkan 
States under the direct control of the Russian For- 
eign Office. It now became necessary for the 
Russian Foreign Office to ascertain, in case war 
between Serbia and Austria broke out, and Ger- 
many should help Austria and Russia should help 
Serbia, whether Russia could count on the support 
of France and England. Russia received this 
assurance in secret, and the terms of it were dis- 
covered by the Soviet Government in the archives 
of the Foreign Office and published in 1919. 
This is a most important fact, and should be con- 
tinually borne in mind in connexion with the 
fact that the war was precipitated by the murder 
of the Austrian Archduke by Serbian officers, 
members of the pan-Slavist organization fostered 
[100] 



and encouraged by MM. Isvolsky and Hartwig. 
On 9 August, 1912, M. Poincare, then Premier 
of France, made a visit to St. Petersburg, where 
he was joined by his kindred spirit, M. Isvolsky, 
who was then the Russian Ambassador at Paris. 
It was the usual visit of State, and Russia staged 
an imposing series of military manoeuvres in M. 
Poincare's honour. But the really important 
events that took place were these. First, a naval 
agreement was made between France and Russia, 
whereby France agreed to concentrate her naval 
forces in the Eastern Mediterranean in order to 
support the Russian navy in the Black Sea. This 
agreement was secret, and revealed by the Soviet 
Government in 1918. Then, in the same month, 
the Third French Naval Squadron was trans- 
ferred from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. 
M. Poincare told M. Isvolsky that "this decision 
has been made in agreement with England, and 
forms the further development and completion of 
the arrangement already made previously between 
the French and British Staffs" — referring to the 
conference of Messrs. Asquith and Churchill and 
Lord Kitchener at Malta, the month before, at 
which the new disposition of the English and 
French fleets was decided. The third matter of 
consequence that took place in the month of 

[101] 



August was that the Russian Government began 
to put pressure on the French Government to 
re-establish the Three Years Military Service law. 
So much for August. In the month of Sep- 
tember, M. Poincare gave the Russian Foreign 
Minister, M. Sazonov, assurance that if Germany- 
helped Austria in a struggle in the Balkans, and 
if Russia were drawn in on the other side, France 
"would not hesitate for a moment to fulfil its 
obligations towards Russia." In the same month, 
M. Isvolsky had an interview with the King of 
England and Sir Edward Grey, the British 
Foreign Minister, in which both King George and 
Sir E. Grey assured him of the fullest British 
co-operation in the same event. M. Isvolsky re- 
ported to the Russian Foreign Office at St. Peters- 
burg, that "Grey, upon his own initiative, cor- 
roborated what I already knew from Poincare — 
the existence of an agreement between France 
and Great Britain, according to which England 
undertook, in case of a war with Germany, not 
only to come to the assistance of France on the 
sea, but also on the Continent, by landing troops." 
These two understandings between MM. Poin- 
care and Sazonov, and between M. Isvolsky and 
Sir E. Grey, were secret, and nothing was known 
of them until 1919, when the memoranda of 
[102] 



them were published by the Soviet Government.^ 
A train of gunpowder, in other words, had been 
laid from Belgrade through Paris and London to 
St. Petersburg; and at the beginning of that train 
was the highly inflammable and inflammatory 
pan-Slavism, organized by M. Hartwig with the 
connivance of M. Isvolsky. A spark struck in the 
Balkans would cause the train to flash into flame 
throughout its entire length. 

1 On lo March of the following year, Mr. Asquith, replying 
to a question in the Commons from Lord Hugh Cecil, denied 
that England was under an "obligation arising owing to an 
assurance given by the Ministry in the course of diplomatic 
negotiations, to send a very large armed force out of this coun- 
try to operate in Europe." On 24 March, he made similar 
denials in reply to questions from Sir W. Byles and Mr. King. 
On 14 April, Mr. Runciman, in a speech at Birkenhead, denied 
"in the most categorical way" the existence of a secret under- 
standing with any foreign Power! On 3 May, the Secretary 
for the Colonies, Mr. Harcourt, declared publicly that he 
"could conceive no circumstances in which Continental opera- 
tions would not be a crime against the people of this country." 
On 28 June, the under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Mr. 
Acland, declared publicly that "in no European question were 
we concerned to interfere with a big army." On i July, Lord 
Lorcburn, Lord Chancellor from 1906 to 1912, said "that any 
British Government would be so guilty towards our country as 
to take up arms in a foreign quarrel is more than I can be- 
lieve." On 28 April, 1914, and again on ii June, Sir E. Grey 
confirmed, in the House of Commons, Mr. Asquith's assertion, 
made 10 and 24 March, 191 3, of British freedom from engage- 
ments with Continental Powers. 

Yet, curiously the professions of politicians are still trusted, 
and people still expect something from their machinations; they 
expected something substantial from the recent conference in 
Washington, on the limitation of armaments, for instance — a 
striking and pathetic example of the strength of superstition. 

[103] 



XIX 

On 25 April, 1912, the German Reichstag put 
through its first reading a bill, with only per- 
functory debate, for an increase in the German 
army and navy. This measure has been regu- 
larly and officially interpreted as a threat. Yet 
nearly a year after, on 19 February, 1913, Baron 
Guillaume, writing from Paris about the pros- 
pects of the Three Years Service bill, reports 
to the Belgian Foreign Office that the French 
Minister of War "does not regard the measures 
taken by Germany as a demonstration of hos- 
tility, but rather as an act of prudence for the 
future. Germany fears that she may one day 
have to fight Russia and France together, perhaps 
England too; and then any help that Austria 
might give her would be seriously handicapped 
by the fact that the Dual Monarchy [Austria- 
Hungary] would have to withstand a coalition of 
Balkan States." 

Naturally. The bill was presented to the 
Reichstag in April, and the "coalition of Balkan 
[104] 



States," M. Hartwig's Balkan League, had al- 
ready completed its organization in February. 
Not only so, but the very first step taken by this 
exemplary organization provided -for a division 
of spoils in the event of a successful war with 
Turkey; and six months after the organization of 
the League was concluded, it served an ultimatum 
upon Turkey over Albania, and in October went 
to war. The German Government could quite 
plainly see the future about to be inaugurated 
through this consolidation of Balkan policy into 
the hands of the Russian Foreign Office — any one 
even an attentive reader of newspapers, could see 
it — and it could see the vastly increased responsi- 
bility of its Austrian ally, in case of a quarrel, 
should it have to take on a coalition of the Balkan 
States instead of a single one. 

Count de Lalaing reported from London, 24 
February, 1918, that the British Foreign Office 
took the same sensible view of the German mili- 
tary increases as, according to Baron Guillaume, 
was taken by M. Jonnart. "The English press," 
he says, "is of course anxious to saddle Germany 
with the responsibility for the fresh tension 
caused by her schemes — a tension which may give 
Europe fresh reasons for uneasiness." But, he 
goes on — 



At the Foreign Office I found a more equitable and 
calmer estimate of the situation. They see in the re- 
inforcement of the German armies not so much a provo- 
cation as an admission that circumstances have weakened 
Germany's military position, and that it must be strength- 
ened. The Berlin Government is compelled to recognize 
that it can no longer count upon being supported by the 
whole force of its Austrian ally, now that a new Power, 
that of the Balkan Federation, has made its appearance 
in South-eastern Europe, right at the gates of the Dual 
Empire. . . . Under these circumstances, the Foreign 
Office sees nothing astonishing in Germany's finding it 
imperative to increase the number of her army corps. 
The Foreign Office also states that the Berlin Government 
had told the Paris Cabinet quite frankly that such were 
the motives for its action. 

The same view was publicly expressed by Mr. 
Lloyd George himself as late as i January, 1914, 
when he said: 

The German army was vital, not merely to the 
existence of the German Empire, but to the very life and 
independence of the nation itself, surrounded, as Germany 
is, by other nations, each of which possesses armies as 
powerful as her own. We forget that while we insist 
upon a sixty-per-cent superiority (as far as our naval 
strength is concerned) over Germany being essential to 
guarantee the integrity of our own shores, Germany her- 
self has nothing like that superiority over France alone, 
and she has of course, in addition, to reckon with Russia 

[io6] 



on her eastern frontier. Germany has nothing which 
approximates to a two-Power standard. She has, there- 
fore, become alarmed by recent issues, and is spending 
huge sums of money on the expansion of her military re- 
sources. 

Those are the words, be it remembered, of the 
same person who says to-day that German re- 
sponsibility for the war which broke out six 
months after he had made the foregoing state- 
ment, is a chose jugee! The statement was made, 
furthermore, not only after the German bill of 
25 April, 1912, but after the bill of 8 April, 1913, 
as well, which fixed the peace-strength of the 
German army at 870,000. 

The Three Years Service law passed the French 
Chamber in August, 1913, after a passionate popu- 
lar campaign. Of this measure Baron Guillaume 
says that the French newspapers, Le Temps in 
particular, "are wrong in representing the French 
Government's plans as being in response to 
measures adopted by Germany. Many of them 
are but the outcome of measures which have 
long been prepared." The French Minister, M. 
Jonnart, told him that "we know very well what 
an advantage our neighbour [Germany] has in 
the continual growth of his population; still, we 
must do all that lies in our power to compensate 
[107] 



this advantage by better military organization." 
Probably this view of the Three Years Service 
law was the view held by all save the relatively 
small and highly-integrated war-faction; and in 
so far as military measures are ever reasonable, 
this, like the corresponding measures taken in 
Germany, must be regarded as reasonable. As 
M. Pichon told Baron Guillaume, "We are not 
arming for war, we are arming to avoid it, to 
exorcise it. . . . We must go on arming more and 
more in order to prevent war." There is no 
reason whatever to suppose that this view was 
not sincerely entertained by M. Pichon and by 
many others, probably by a majority of the per- 
sons most responsibly concerned. 

But the consequences of the Three Years Ser- 
vice law were contemplated by Baron Guillaume 
with great apprehension. He reports on 12 June, 
1913, that "the burden of the new law will fall 
so heavily upon the population, and the expendi- 
ture which it will involve will be so exorbitant, 
that there will soon be an outcry in the country, 
and France will be faced with this dilemma: 
either renounce what she can not bear to forgo, or 
else, war at short notice." Of the militarist 
party now in the ascendancy, he says: "They 
are followed with a sort of infatuation, a kind 
[io8] 



of frenzy which is interesting but deplorable. 
One is not now allowed, under pain of being 
marked as a traitor, to express even a doubt of 
the need for the Three Years Service." 

Public opinion was evidently confiscated by the 
Poincare-Millerand-Delcasse group, much as it 
was in the United States in 1917 by the war- 
party headed by Mr. Wilson. Baron Guillaume 
uses words that must remind us of those days. 
"Every one knows," he says, "that the mass of 
the nation is by no means in favour of the pro- 
jected reform, and they understand the danger 
that lies ahead. But they shut their eyes and 
press on." 



[109] 



XX 

The train of powder, however, had been laid by 
the diplomatic engagements. Austria-Hungary 
and Serbia came into collision in the spring of 
1913 over the Scutari incident. In December, 
1912, M. Sazonov had urged Serbia to play a 
waiting game in order to "deliver a blow at 
Austria." But on 4 April, 1913, Baron Beyens 
reports from Berlin that the arrogance and con- 
tempt with which the Serbs receive the Vienna 
Cabinet's protests over Scutari 

can only be explained by their belief that St. Petersburg 
will support them. The Serbian charge d'affaires was 
quite openly saying here lately that his Government 
would not have persisted in its course for the last six 
months in the face of the Austrian opposition had they 
not received encouragement in their course from the 
Russian Minister, M. de Hartwig, who is a diplomatist 
of M. Isvolsky's school. . . . M. Sazonov's heart is 
with his colleagues who are directing the policy of the 
Great Powers, but he feels his influence with the Tsar 
being undermined by the court-party and the pan- 
Slavists. Hence his inconsequent behaviour. 

[no] 



' The military activity which the Russian Gov- 
ernment displayed in 1913 gives interest to this 
estimate of M. Sazonov's position. No doubt 
to some extent the estimate was correct; M. 
Sazonov, like Sir E. Grey, was probably, when 
it was too late, much disquieted by the events 
which marshalled him the way that he was going. 
In 1914, this military activity gained extraor- 
dinary intensity. The Russian army was put 
upon a peace-footing of approximately 1,400,000, 
"an effective numerical strength hitherto unprec- 
edented," said the St. Petersburg correspond- 
ent of the London Times. From January to 
June, the Russian Government made immense 
purchases of war material. In February, it con- 
cluded a loan in Paris for the improvement of its 
strategic roads and railways on the German 
frontier. Russia, as was generally known at the 
time, had her eye on the acquisition of Constanti- 
nople ; and in the same month, February, a council 
of war was held in St. Petersburg to work out 
"a general programme of action in order to secure 
for us a favourable solution of the historical ques- 
tion of the Straits." In March, the St. Peters- 
burg newspaper which served as the mouthpiece 
of the Minister of War, published an article stat- 

[111] 



ing that Russia's strategy would no longer be "de- 
fensive" but "active." Another paper spoke of 
the time coming when "the crossing of the Aus- 
trian frontier by the Russian army would be an 
unavoidable decision." In the same month, 
Russia raised a heavy tariff against the importa- 
tion of German grain and flour ; thus bearing out 
the evidence of German trade-reports that even 
at this time Germany was still exporting grain 
to Russia — a most extraordinary proceeding for 
a nation which contemplated a sudden declara- 
tion of war before the next harvest. In the same 
month, the Russian Government brought in mili- 
tary estimates of £97 million. It exercised heavy 
pressure on the French Government in the pro- 
tracted political turmoil over the maintenance of 
the Three Years Service law. In April, "trial 
mobilizations" were begun, and were continued up 
to the outbreak of the war. In May, M. Sazonov 
informed the Tsar that the British Government 
"has decided to empower the British Admiralty 
Staff to enter into negotiations with French and 
Russian naval agents in London for the purpose 
of drawing technical conditions for possible action 
by the naval forces of England, Russia and 
France." In the same month, a complete mobil- 
ization of all the reserves of the three annual 

[112] 



contingents of 1907-1909 was ordered for the 
whole Russian Empire, as a "test," to take place 
in the autumn. In the same month the Russian 
Admiralty instructed its agent in London, Captain 
Volkov, as follows: 

Our interests on the Northern scene of operations re- 
quire that England keeps as large a part of the German 
fleet as possible in check in the North Sea. . . . The 
English Government could render us a substantial service 
if it would agree to send a sufficient number of boats to 
our Baltic ports to compensate for our lack of means of 
transport, before the beginning of war-operations. 

This document, revealed by the Soviet Govern- 
ment in 1919, is pretty damaging to the assump- 
tion of an "unprepared and unsuspecting Europe" ; 
especially as Professor Conybeare has given pub- 
licity to the fact that "before the beginning of 
war-operations" those English boats were there, 
prompt to the minute, empty, ready and waiting. 
In June, the Russian Ambassador warned the 
Russian naval staff in London that they must 
exercise great caution in talking about a landing 
in Pomerania or about the dispatch of English 
boats to the Russian Baltic ports before the out- 
break of war, "so that the rest may not be jeopard- 
ized." On 13 June, the newspaper-organ of the 

[113] 



Russian Minister of War published an inspired 
article under the caption: "Russia is Ready: 
France must be Ready." 

Two weeks later, the Austrian heir-apparent, 
the Archduke Francis Joseph, was murdered at 
Sarajevo, a town in Bosnia, by Serbian officers. 
The murder was arranged by the Serbian Major 
Tankesitch, of the pan-Slavist organization known 
as the Black Hand; and this organization was 
fostered, if not actually subsidized, by the Rus- 
sian Minister at Belgrade, M. Hartwig, the pupil 
and alter ego of M. Isvolsky, and the architect 
and promoter of the Balkan League I 



[114] 



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